Your hamburger, beer, bagged salad, and even your emotional-support Diet Coke have officially entered the Time of MAGA.

American corporations often insist that they prefer to remain politically neutral. What they usually mean is that they prefer customers not examine their political activity too closely. While tech billionaires lined up at Mar-a-Lago after the 2024 election, several of America’s largest food companies and restaurant owners were also writing checks, hosting fundraisers, financing political committees, and repositioning their brands for the second Trump administration.

The relationships are not all identical. Some contributions came directly from corporations, while others came from the people who own and control them. A few companies embraced MAGA as a public marketing strategy. Others criticized Trump when he appeared politically weakened, then rediscovered their enthusiasm for cooperation once he regained power.

Those distinctions matter because the receipts tell a larger story about how corporate resistance collapses when political access, regulatory favors, and government power enter the equation.

Coca-Cola Rediscovered the Value of a Personalized Diet Coke

Coca-Cola was willing to criticize Trump when his first presidency ended in violence and political disgrace. In 2021, the company condemned the January 6 attack and criticized Georgia’s restrictive voting law. Trump responded by calling for Republicans to boycott Coca-Cola, although he continued drinking Diet Coke himself because a Trump boycott works approximately like a Trump marriage vow: everyone understands that exceptions will be made.

Four years later, Coca-Cola CEO James Quincey personally presented Trump with a custom Diet Coke bottle commemorating his second inauguration. The company has said it produced commemorative bottles for every presidential inauguration beginning in 2005, so the gift should not be misrepresented as an exclusive endorsement of Trump.

The reversal remains difficult to miss. Coca-Cola publicly opposed conduct associated with Trump while his power was receding, endured his call for a boycott, and then arrived with his favorite beverage personalized for the occasion when he returned to Washington.

Cause of MAGA: Coca-Cola stood up to Trump until standing up threatened Diet Coke sales.

Steak ’n Shake Put MAGA on the Menu

Steak ’n Shake took a considerably louder route by weaving Trump-world politics into its public identity. During 2025, the company promoted its switch to beef tallow, created “Tesla Tallow Tuesday,” began accepting Bitcoin, and pledged to match contributions to Trump Accounts for eligible children of its employees.

Beef tallow itself is not a MAGA invention. Restaurants cooked with it long before Robert F. Kennedy Jr. discovered shirtless content creation. Steak ’n Shake deliberately connected the change to the Make America Healthy Again movement and continued adding Trump, Elon Musk, Kennedy, and cryptocurrency to its marketing.

The strategy appears designed to transform an ordinary fast-food purchase into a political statement. Customers are no longer merely buying a hamburger. They are being invited to imagine that eating one constitutes resistance to the liberal establishment.

Cause of MAGA: They seasoned the fries with podcast comments.

Goya’s CEO Added Election Denial to the Seasoning

Goya Foods began publicly attaching itself to Trump years before many corporations started preparing for his return. During an official White House event in July 2020, then-CEO Robert Unanue said the country was “truly blessed” to have Trump as its leader.

That was a striking branding choice for America’s largest Hispanic-owned food company. Trump launched his presidential campaign by demonizing Mexican immigrants and later built his political movement around mass deportation and increasingly aggressive immigration enforcement.

Unanue’s involvement went beyond a complimentary appearance at the White House. He later appeared at the Conservative Political Action Conference, called Trump the “real, legitimate and still actual president,” and promoted the lie that the 2020 election had been stolen. Goya removed Unanue as CEO in 2025, so his conduct should not automatically be attributed to the company’s current leadership. For years, however, the company’s most visible executive used his position and Goya’s platform to connect the brand to Trump and election denial.

Cause of MAGA: The beans are now seasoned with election fraud.

McDonald’s Supersized Its Inaugural Contribution

Trump’s staged campaign appearance at a Pennsylvania McDonald’s became one of the most recognizable images of the 2024 election. He wore an apron, stood behind the counter, and pretended to work the fryer. The restaurant was closed to the public, the customers were pre-screened, and Trump had not picked up an emergency shift because somebody called out sick.

McDonald’s said the corporation did not organize the appearance and does not endorse presidential candidates. That distinction was accurate and worth preserving. After Trump won, however, McDonald’s Corporation contributed $1 million to his inaugural committee.

The campaign event may not have been a corporate endorsement, but the seven-figure check came directly from the corporation. McDonald’s helped finance an inauguration that collected approximately $239 million, more than double the record established by Trump’s first inaugural committee.

The Hamburglar has apparently been replaced by the Influence Peddler.

Cause of MAGA: Supersize the fries and the corporate ass-kissing.

Bud Light Bought Its Bullies a Million-Dollar Round

Anheuser-Busch’s contribution is especially bleak considering what MAGA had already done to Bud Light. In 2023, the company sent transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney one personalized can. Conservative activists responded by filming themselves destroying beer they had already purchased, which remains a remarkable form of economic protest: first they gave the company their money, then they destroyed their own property to teach it a lesson.

The backlash damaged Bud Light’s sales and turned the brand into a permanent MAGA punchline. Rather than maintaining distance from the political movement that organized the campaign against it, Anheuser-Busch contributed $1 million to Trump’s 2025 inaugural committee. That was four times the amount it gave for Trump’s first inauguration.

MAGA spent nearly two years using Bud Light as a symbol of everything it hated. Anheuser-Busch eventually responded by helping finance its political leader’s return to power. The payment looks less like customer outreach than a corporation attempting to purchase peace from people who remain furious about a beer can.

Cause of MAGA: MAGA shot the beer, so Bud Light bought MAGA a million-dollar round.

In-N-Out’s Owner Found a New Secret Menu

In-N-Out Burger has long printed small Bible references on its cups and packaging. During the first half of 2025, its owner and president, Lynsi Snyder, reportedly contributed $2 million to MAGA Inc., the super PAC supporting Trump’s political operation.

The contribution came from Snyder personally, rather than from In-N-Out’s corporate treasury. She is also the company’s sole owner and president, not a distant shareholder whose politics have no meaningful connection to the business. Her wealth, public profile, and political influence are inseparable from the restaurant empire she controls.

Two million dollars is also far beyond the territory of an executive expressing a private political preference. Snyder provided substantial financing to the political operation built to preserve and expand Trump’s power after his return to office.

Apparently, somebody found the Bible verse that says, “Blessed are the billionaires who fund super PACs.”

Cause of MAGA: A Double-Double, fries, and two million dollars to demolish democracy.

Taylor Farms Served a Politically Filthy Salad

Taylor Farms is one of North America’s largest producers of packaged salads and fresh vegetables. Many consumers who do not recognize the company’s name have probably eaten its products.

In March 2025, Taylor Fresh Foods gave $1 million directly to MAGA Inc. This was not a contribution to an inaugural committee that could be presented as a customary gesture toward an incoming administration. The money went to the super PAC created to support Trump’s continuing political operation.

Taylor Farms reportedly gave more than $2 million to conservative political groups during 2025 and more than $3.6 million between 2020 and 2025. Its support was therefore neither symbolic nor confined to congratulating the winner of one election. The company directly financed the machinery responsible for defending Trump, promoting his agenda, and extending his influence.

The salad now comes pre-dressed with ranch, croutons, and a million-dollar super PAC contribution.

Cause of MAGA: Somehow the salad is pre-washed and politically filthy.

The Landry’s Loyalty Program Came With an Ambassadorship

Many consumers may not recognize the name Landry’s, but they will recognize its restaurants. The company controls Morton’s The Steakhouse, Bubba Gump Shrimp Company, Rainforest Cafe, Joe’s Crab Shack, Del Frisco’s, Mastro’s, and dozens of other brands.

Landry’s sole owner, Tilman Fertitta, gave more than $800,000 to Trump’s campaign and affiliated political committees during the 2024 campaign season. He also hosted a Trump fundraiser at his Post Oak Hotel and later cohosted an inaugural reception.

Trump nominated Fertitta to serve as the United States ambassador to Italy after returning to office, and the Senate confirmed him in 2025. Those facts do not independently establish an illegal exchange, and there is no basis for presenting the ambassadorship as a proven reward for his contributions. They do demonstrate how political donations, private hospitality, and access to a president can place a wealthy restaurant owner inside the administration’s governing network.

Landry’s already had an extensive loyalty program. Apparently, ambassador was available on the secret menu.

Cause of MAGA: Spend $800,000 and the animatronic gorilla sends you to Italy.

Pilgrim’s Pride Wrote the Largest Check

Pilgrim’s Pride, one of America’s largest chicken producers, gave $5 million to the Trump-Vance inaugural committee in January 2025. It was the largest single contribution to Trump’s inauguration from any corporation or individual.

The size of the check becomes clearer through comparison. One chicken company gave Trump more than Amazon, Meta, Apple, and Google combined.

Pilgrim’s Pride is majority-owned by JBS, the Brazilian corporation that is also the largest meat-processing company in the world. At the time of the contribution, the companies had consequential business interests before the federal government. Pilgrim’s Pride was under federal scrutiny, while JBS was seeking government approval to list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange.

The Securities and Exchange Commission subsequently approved the JBS listing, and the companies benefited from Trump-era regulatory changes affecting poultry processing. The available facts do not prove that the $5 million purchased those outcomes. They establish that Pilgrim’s Pride wrote the inauguration’s largest check while its corporate family wanted significant decisions from the federal government and later received favorable results.

The sequence does not require invented motives to raise legitimate concerns about access and influence. Corporations do not contribute $5 million because they enjoy folding chairs and inaugural bunting.

Cause of MAGA: The chicken crossed the road to hand Trump five million dollars.

FAT Brands Reached the Bottom of the Deep Fryer

FAT Brands owns Fatburger, Johnny Rockets, Fazoli’s, Round Table Pizza, Great American Cookies, Marble Slab Creamery, and Hot Dog on a Stick. In December 2024, the corporation contributed $100,000 to Trump’s inaugural committee. Founder and former CEO Andy Wiederhorn also personally donated to Trump’s campaign.

At the time, FAT Brands and Wiederhorn were facing federal criminal charges involving allegations of fraud and improper payments. They denied wrongdoing.

In July 2025, Trump’s Justice Department moved to dismiss the charges. Timing alone does not prove that the donation influenced the department’s decision, and the available evidence does not establish a documented quid pro quo. Both facts nevertheless belong in the same public record: a corporation facing federal prosecution gave Trump’s inauguration $100,000, and his Justice Department later abandoned the case.

No additional seasoning is required.

Cause of MAGA: They donated $100,000, and the Justice Department suddenly lost its appetite.

Corporate Principles Apparently Have a Seasonal Menu

These companies did not arrive in Trump’s orbit through one shared path. Steak ’n Shake marketed directly to MAGA consumers, while Goya’s longtime CEO promoted Trump’s election lies. McDonald’s and Anheuser-Busch helped finance his inauguration after he won. In-N-Out’s controlling owner and Taylor Farms directed millions into his political operation.

The relationships become more consequential as corporate interests move closer to government power. Landry’s owner contributed money, hosted Trump, and later became an ambassador. Pilgrim’s Pride wrote the largest inaugural check while its corporate family needed decisions from federal regulators. FAT Brands donated while facing federal prosecution, then watched Trump’s Justice Department move to dismiss the case.

Some executives may genuinely share Trump’s ideology. Others may be pursuing access, protection, favorable regulation, or customers who expect brands to perform political loyalty. The public record cannot establish every private motive, and it does not need to. The money, events, appointments, pending government decisions, and policy outcomes reveal how quickly corporate neutrality becomes flexible when a president can reward allies and punish perceived enemies.

Ordinary consumers are left financing political operations through purchases that appear completely disconnected from politics. A hamburger can help enrich an owner who gives millions to Trump’s super PAC. A bagged salad can support a company writing checks to MAGA Inc. Money spent on beer, cookies, chicken, or fast food can eventually become political influence that the customer never knowingly chose to fund.

Corporations rarely stay out of politics. They prefer that customers remain unaware of their involvement until after placing the order.

Welcome to the Time of MAGA, where apparently even the salad has already donated.

Support This Work

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Video Version:

If the headlines about President Trump, the Supreme Court, the Postal Service and mail-in ballots have left you completely confused, you are missing one fact that makes the entire legal fight much easier to understand. Before we dive in, let me answer the question that I receive the most about this topic.

Why would Trump attack mail-in voting when Republicans use it too?

Republicans absolutely vote by mail, and Trump himself has done it. But nationally, Democrats have used mail voting much more often since 2020. According to Pew Research Center, 58 percent of Biden voters cast mail ballots in 2020, compared with 32 percent of Trump voters. In 2024, the gap narrowed, but it did not disappear: 44 percent of Harris voters voted by mail, compared with 26 percent of Trump voters.

Trump’s plan could block Republican ballots too, especially ballots from older people, military families and rural voters. But if you make mail voting harder, the numbers show that you are placing a larger burden on Democratic voters.

With that out of the way, let’s dive in.

Trump’s lawyers originally argued that his mail-ballot plan could not be challenged because the lawsuit came too early. The Postal Service had not yet finalized the rules, so any possible harm was still hypothetical. Once the rules became final and the challengers returned to court, the administration argued that stopping the plan could take too long because the midterms were getting too close.

That is the legal trap at the center of this story: Americans supposedly had to wait until the government finished creating the rules before they could challenge them, but waiting gave the government a new reason to argue that the courts should let those rules take effect.

The Supreme Court has not declared Trump’s mail-ballot plan constitutional. A federal judge has not overruled the Supreme Court. Mail-in voting has not been banned. The newest rules are currently paused under a 14-day temporary restraining order while the courts consider what happens next.

Trump Tries to Put the Postal Service in Charge of Ballots

President Trump started this fight on March 31, 2026, when he signed an executive order called “Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections.” The order claimed to protect elections from fraud, although the federal court reviewing the policy found no evidence in the record showing a mail-voting fraud problem that would justify the changes.

The executive order directed federal agencies to create lists of people the federal government considered confirmed United States citizens who would be old enough to vote. It also ordered the United States Postal Service to build a new system for handling mail-in and absentee ballots.

Under that system, states would have to comply with new federal requirements before using the mail to send ballots to their own voters. They would have to submit ballot-envelope designs to USPS for approval, use special tracking barcodes and upload information about mail voters to a new federal portal.

The Constitution gives states the primary responsibility for running elections. Congress has the power to pass federal election laws that can override state rules in certain circumstances. The president does not have an independent constitutional power to rewrite election procedures through an executive order.

The Postal Service’s traditional role is also straightforward: It delivers election mail. Trump’s order would turn USPS into a federal gatekeeper with the power to decide whether a state had completed the required steps before ballots could move through the mail.

That change could affect roughly one-third of the electorate. More than 30 percent of voters cast their ballots by mail in the 2024 election, including Republicans, Democrats and independents. Older voters, people with disabilities, military families, rural Americans and citizens living overseas are especially dependent on reliable mail voting.

Two Lawsuits Block the Plan

Trump’s order immediately faced legal challenges. Twenty-three states and Washington, D.C., filed one case. Voting-rights organizations, including the League of Women Voters, brought another.

The states argued that Trump was taking election power the Constitution did not give him and placing unlawful federal demands on state election officials. The voting-rights groups argued that the system could prevent eligible Americans from receiving or returning ballots permitted under their state laws.

Both cases went before U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in Massachusetts. On June 25, she ruled in favor of the states, finding that major portions of the order were unlawful. The court entered its final judgment on July 7, blocking those portions of the executive order in the 23 plaintiff states and Washington, D.C., for the 2026 election.

Judge Talwani issued another ruling on August 11 in the case brought by the voting-rights organizations. That decision imposed a nationwide preliminary injunction preventing USPS from creating and using the new mail-ballot system for the midterms.

At that point, two separate court orders stood in the administration’s way. Trump responded by asking the Supreme Court for emergency relief.

The Supreme Court Said the First Case Came Too Early

The Trump administration did not ask the Supreme Court to issue a final decision establishing that the president had the power to control mail voting. Its emergency request focused on whether the states had the legal right to bring their case when they did.

The administration argued that the states had sued before USPS completed its final rule. Although Trump had ordered the Postal Service to build a specific mail-ballot system, the final policy technically did not exist when the lawsuit began. USPS could have changed the proposal, withdrawn it or produced a different final rule.

In plain English, the states were being told that they could not challenge something the government had not officially finished doing.

On August 24, the Supreme Court accepted that timing argument and paused the injunction in the states’ case. The resulting headlines made it sound as though the justices had approved Trump’s mail-voting restrictions. The actual Supreme Court order was much narrower.

The Court said the states had sued too early to demonstrate a concrete injury. It did not decide whether Trump’s order was constitutional, whether USPS possessed the legal authority to regulate state ballot systems or whether any of the final requirements could lawfully be enforced.

The majority explicitly wrote that its decision “does not mean that any measure taken by the Government to implement the Order will necessarily be lawful.” If the Postal Service issued a final rule that harmed the states, the Court said they could challenge that rule.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented. Jackson rejected the idea that the injury was merely hypothetical when USPS was already developing the rule and the administration was fighting to use it during the midterms. The government’s own emergency request demonstrated that it intended to move forward before November.

The Supreme Court nevertheless lifted the injunction in the states’ case. Judge Talwani then removed the nationwide injunction in the League of Women Voters case because the Supreme Court’s reasoning affected that order as well.

For a brief moment, the legal barriers were gone.

The Hypothetical Rule Becomes Real

The Postal Service finalized its mail-ballot rule almost immediately. It took effect on August 26, transforming the government’s unfinished proposal into an enforceable federal policy.

The final rule required state and local election officials to submit both outgoing and return ballot-envelope designs to USPS for approval. Officials would have to create accounts in a new federal portal, use unique barcodes and upload information about each voter receiving a mail ballot.

Election officials could not begin uploading voter information until USPS approved their envelope designs. The rule provided no clear deadline for how quickly those approvals would be completed.

Failure carried an enormous consequence. If a state did not receive envelope approval, submit the required voter information or use the proper barcodes, USPS could refuse to mail the affected ballots.

An eligible voter could be properly registered and fully qualified under state law. A state could follow every election law already on its books. That voter could still lose access to a ballot because state officials had not completed a brand-new federal approval process created weeks before ballots were scheduled to go out.

The states and voting-rights groups returned to Judge Talwani immediately. This time, they were not challenging an executive order that might produce a rule in the future. They were challenging the completed USPS rule the Supreme Court had said could be reviewed once it caused an actual injury.

The 14-Day Emergency Pause

On August 27, Judge Talwani issued a temporary restraining order, commonly called a TRO. A TRO is a short emergency pause designed to preserve existing conditions until a court has time to consider fuller legal arguments.

It is not a final ruling on the entire case. In this instance, the order lasts for 14 days while the parties prepare for a September 3 hearing on a preliminary injunction. A preliminary injunction could keep the restrictions blocked for a longer period while the lawsuit continues.

The August 27 order freezes the most dangerous parts of the USPS policy for elections occurring on or before November 3. USPS cannot require states to obtain federal approval for their ballot envelopes, use the new portal, enroll their voters in the federal system or comply with the new rules as a condition for mailing ballots.

Judge Talwani found that the challengers were likely to win their claims that USPS lacked the authority to issue the rule. Congress had never given the Postal Service the extraordinary power to regulate state election systems or prevent compliant state officials from using the mail to send ballots.

The timing also made compliance practically impossible. Most states had already designed and ordered their ballot materials. Election systems had been programmed, workers had been trained and some states were legally required to begin mailing ballots as early as the following week.

State officials would somehow have to redesign envelopes, obtain federal approval, order new materials, update computer systems, train workers, create portal accounts, assign barcodes and upload individual voter information. USPS had not even established a firm turnaround time for approving the new envelopes.

The judge noted that the administration and the Republican-led states supporting it offered no answer to evidence showing that compliance would be impossible for many states. If those states failed to comply, voters who depended on mail ballots faced “significant risk of disenfranchisement.”

A legal voter who loses the opportunity to cast a ballot cannot be made whole after Election Day. As the court wrote, there can be no “do-over” after someone has been denied the right to vote.

First the Lawsuit Was Too Early. Then It Was Too Late.

Two weeks before the final rule appeared, government lawyers told Judge Talwani that anyone harmed by the completed policy would have standing to challenge it. They specifically said courts could work quickly and issue a temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction in “a very short amount of time.”

The Supreme Court adopted the administration’s central timing argument on August 24. The challengers waited until the rule became final, returned to court immediately and requested the exact emergency relief government lawyers had said would be available.

The administration then changed its argument. According to Judge Talwani’s order, the defendants claimed the challengers were too late “because appellate review in the ordinary course would come too late for the 2026 midterms.”

Judge Talwani rejected that claim as a reason to deny the TRO. The immediate question was whether the challengers had satisfied the normal requirements for emergency relief. Her ruling found that they had.

The administration helped create the time pressure it now wants the courts to treat as a reason for allowing the policy to proceed. It spent months insisting that nobody could challenge the plan until USPS completed the final rule. USPS then completed it as states were preparing to distribute ballots. The shrinking calendar became the administration’s next legal defense.

How the Purcell Principle Could Complete the Trap

The approaching election raises another legal issue known as the Purcell principle. It comes from a 2006 Supreme Court case called Purcell v. Gonzalez and generally warns federal courts against changing election rules too close to an election.

Last-minute court orders can confuse voters, disrupt election offices and create mistakes. The principle is supposed to protect stable election procedures during the final weeks of voting preparation.

Its application here depends on what the courts consider the disruptive change.

States already have established mail-voting systems. Their envelopes have been designed, their ballots have been ordered, their workers have been trained and their legal deadlines are approaching. Trump’s USPS rule adds federal envelope approval, special barcodes, a new voter portal and the possibility that ballots will not be mailed if election officials cannot complete the process.

The TRO preserves the system that existed before August 26. The USPS rule is the last-minute change.

The Trump administration is likely to invoke Purcell as the case moves through the appeals process. Its lawyers may argue that blocking the USPS rule would interfere with an election that is already underway. The challengers will respond that allowing the rule to take effect would create the very confusion and disruption Purcell was designed to prevent.

Justice Jackson anticipated this problem in her dissent. She warned that the government could defeat an early challenge by calling it premature, then use Purcell to defeat a later challenge because the election had grown too close. She wrote that such an application would be “odd and inequitable,” especially after the government promised that the states could challenge the final rule once it existed.

The government told the challengers to return later. Allowing it to lock the courthouse door when they returned would make timely review impossible by design.

September 3 Is the Next Critical Date

Judge Talwani’s TRO lasts for 14 days from August 27 unless it is extended or replaced. On September 3, she will consider whether to issue a preliminary injunction blocking the core USPS requirements for a longer period.

An appeal is almost certain. The case would ordinarily move to the First U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, but either side could eventually ask the Supreme Court for another emergency ruling.

If the dispute returns to the Supreme Court, the justices will face a different case from the one they considered on August 24. The earlier decision concerned whether the states could challenge an unfinished policy. The envelope requirements, federal portal, voter-information demands and threat of nondelivery now exist in a final rule.

The courts can finally address the questions the Supreme Court avoided the first time: Did Congress give USPS the power to regulate state mail voting? Can the president use the Postal Service to impose election requirements he could not impose directly? Can USPS refuse to handle ballots that are legal under state law because election officials failed to satisfy a newly created federal process?

The Supreme Court could keep the restrictions blocked, allow portions of them to take effect or permit the entire rule to operate while the litigation continues. Anyone claiming to know the outcome is guessing.

Follow Your State’s Current Voting Instructions

The core portions of Trump’s USPS rule are temporarily blocked as of August 28. Mail-in voting remains legal, and voters should continue following the instructions provided by their state and local election officials.

A frightening headline is not a reason to throw away a ballot or assume that voting by mail is no longer available. Voters should check their registrations, request ballots before their state deadlines and carefully follow the official instructions included with those ballots.

People who depend on voting by mail should consider acting early. Use your state’s ballot-tracking service if one is available, keep records showing when you requested or returned your ballot and monitor official election updates as the case moves through the courts.

This fight will determine whether a president can use the Postal Service as a gatekeeper between states and eligible voters. It will also test whether an administration can avoid judicial review by calling a challenge premature until the final weeks before an election, then use those disappearing weeks as a shield against the courts.

Trump’s administration demanded that Americans wait for a final rule. When that rule arrived, it argued that the country could no longer afford to wait for the courts. No government should be allowed to manufacture its own deadline and then use that deadline to place voting rights beyond review.

Support This Work

The Grizzly Report is for people who are tired of being manipulated by headlines, political theater and confidently repeated lies. I do the digging, verify the claims and connect the pieces so you can understand what is happening, why it matters and what the people in power would prefer you never examine too closely.

If you regularly read this work and believe independent reporting like this needs to survive, please become a paid subscriber today. Reading is valuable, but paid subscriptions are what give me the time and independence to investigate these stories without answering to political parties, corporate sponsors or algorithms. If you have been considering upgrading, this is the moment when your decision can make a real difference.

Subscribe now

Not ready for a paid subscription? You can still help this reporting reach thousands of people who may never encounter it otherwise. Share this article with one person who needs the receipts, post it to your social media, or buy me a coffee to support the research behind the next investigation. Independent media does not have a billion-dollar distribution system; it has readers willing to carry important work into rooms the algorithm will not.

To my Grizzlies who already subscribe, share this work and continue showing up: you are not supporting “an influencer.” You are funding independent reporting, public education and a community committed to defending democracy with facts instead of surrendering to fear. I deeply appreciate every one of you. 🐻 💛

Video Version:

For years, Donald Trump’s supporters turned political loyalty into a consumer identity. They did not merely vote for him; they bought the hats, raised the flags, covered their trucks in decals and filled entire stores with merchandise bearing his face. MAGA became a brand, and an enormous retail economy developed around selling people visible proof that they belonged to the movement.

Now parts of that economy are beginning to crack. A massive Trump merchandise store in Tennessee is liquidating its inventory because customers stopped shopping there. Meanwhile, a Trump store in Illinois temporarily closed after failing to generate enough sales to cover half its rent—then reopened, appeared to announce another closure, blamed liberals and used a fake AI newscast to deny the announcement posted by its own Facebook page.

Welcome back to MAGA FAFO, where even the businesses selling the fantasy can no longer afford to live in Trump’s reality.

The Tennessee Trump Superstore Is Going Out of Business

Beside Interstate 40 in Lenoir City, just outside Knoxville, sits the Tennessee Trump Superstore. The sprawling roadside operation is impossible to miss: enormous Trump banners and billboards cover the building, while a brick outhouse labeled the “Democrat Superstore” sits outside. Customers can buy the usual assortment of hats, shirts, flags, mugs and signs, along with a $2,999 Trump mannequin wearing a “Trump 2028” hat.

The store opened in April 2024, as MAGA enthusiasm was building ahead of the presidential election. By mid-August 2026, however, signs announced that the business was going out of business and everything was 50 percent off. No final closing date has been announced, but the store is liquidating its remaining inventory and preparing to shut down.

Early local reporting suggested that 80-year-old owner William “Bill” Hays might be retiring or relocating to Florida. Hays rejected that explanation when Slate, a national online news and culture publication, contacted him. He said he was neither retiring nor moving away.

“We’re closing for lack of business,” Hays admitted.

An employee identified as Dan confirmed that customer traffic had dried up. When asked whether the store was still busy, he answered plainly: “No. That’s why we’re closing. We’re not busy anymore.”

MAGA Outrage Was Never a Sustainable Business Model

There was a time when dramatic political events could send customers flooding into the store. Hays said that after the first assassination attempt against Trump in July 2024, people waited to get through the door while chanting, “Choo Choo Trump train.” He described the entire building as moving from the size and energy of the crowd.

Those events produced bursts of business, but they never created consistent customer traffic. According to Dan, even one of the store’s busiest days brought only 86 people through the door. He now describes Trump’s popularity as “dwindling, dwindling, dwindling.”

Then Dan offered one of the clearest descriptions of Trump’s economy that anyone inside MAGA has managed to produce. He said people are asking themselves whether they can afford a full load of groceries or whether they will need to put their electric bill on a credit card.

That is the entire MAGA FAFO economy in one sentence. Trump promised working people that he would make life affordable, and his political movement sold them hats and flags celebrating that promise. Now those same supporters are struggling to pay for groceries and electricity, while the store selling the fantasy is liquidating because people stopped buying the merchandise.

One Trump store going out of business does not prove that every Trump supporter has abandoned him. It does, however, expose the difference between political attention and sustainable support. Anger can sell a T-shirt and fear can move hats, but eventually the election ends, governing begins and people have to pay their actual bills.

The Trump Truth Store Could Not Cover Half Its Rent

If the Tennessee store represents the economic side of this MAGA FAFO story, the Trump Truth Store in Crystal Lake, Illinois, represents the psychological side.

The store sells Trump merchandise alongside products celebrating guns, police, the military and Christianity, because apparently those are all one political subscription package now. Its owner, Lisa Fleischmann, previously operated the business in nearby Huntley. That location closed on July 13, 2025, following an eviction dispute involving the merchandise, flags, tables, signs and roughly six-foot inflatable Trump she displayed outside the building.

Fleischmann relocated the business to 829 South Virginia Road in Crystal Lake, moving into a space reportedly three-and-a-half times larger. That decision did not go particularly well. On March 26, 2026, she announced that the store was “closed until further notice” because it was not generating enough money.

Fleischmann admitted that sales were bringing in less than half of what she needed to pay the rent. She said she was lucky to get three cars a day, and many of the people who entered the store bought nothing. She had even purchased tables and chairs for Trump bingo because supporters repeatedly told her they wanted a physical location where they could gather.

“I really thought that everyone wanted this,” she said, “but no one’s coming.”

MAGA supporters told Fleischmann they wanted a store where they could gather, celebrate Trump and buy merchandise. She spent real money creating it, and they responded by staying home. Apparently, neither Facebook enthusiasm nor Trump bingo is a business plan.

Trump’s War Helped Kill the Merchandise Business

Fleischmann blamed the collapse in sales partly on Trump’s war with Iran, saying business became “dead as a doornail” the moment the war started. She believed supporters had become uncertain about Trump’s decisions and no longer wanted to wear his merchandise because someone might approach them and ask questions.

That explanation reveals more than she probably intended. Wearing Trump merchandise is easy when he is making promises. It becomes considerably harder when the hat transforms its owner into the customer-service department for every promise he broke.

Trump said he would end the wars, but now his supporters must answer questions about Iran. He promised to lower prices, but now the people who bought his merchandise are choosing between groceries and electricity. He promised so much prosperity that Americans would become tired of winning, but the Tennessee Trump Superstore is liquidating while the Trump Truth Store cannot generate enough sales to cover half its rent.

The Crystal Lake store did not remain closed. Fleischmann reopened it in mid-April and held a grand-opening celebration on May 16. Ten days later, she acquired an entirely different kind of publicity.

The Store Owner’s Arrest Became the Next Spectacle

On May 26, police stopped Fleischmann after noticing that her license plate was bent. During the stop, officers discovered an outstanding DuPage County arrest warrant connected to an earlier failure to appear in court. The underlying case involved driving with a suspended license.

Fleischmann initially refused to get out of her vehicle. After officers placed her in handcuffs, she screamed that she had done nothing wrong, complained that the handcuffs hurt and threatened to sue them. She was transported to the DuPage County Jail and held overnight before being released with another court date.

The body-camera footage was released in early August and quickly spread online. Later that month, Fleischmann pleaded guilty to driving with a suspended license as part of a plea agreement. A separate charge involving a canceled, suspended or revoked vehicle registration was dismissed, and she received six months of court supervision.

Fleischmann maintains that the underlying problem was paperwork. She has also claimed that she was only seven minutes late to court. Whatever the explanation, the viral arrest footage added yet another chaotic episode to the history of a store already struggling to attract customers.

Then the story became genuinely absurd.

“Closing Store! Libs Win!!!”

On Thursday afternoon, August 20, the Trump Truth Store’s own Facebook page posted a seemingly unambiguous announcement: “Closing store! Libs win!!!”

Local reporters naturally interpreted that as an announcement that the store was closing. People shared screenshots, and stories began circulating about the business shutting down again. The wording did not leave much room for an alternative interpretation.

The following day, however, Fleischmann reversed course and said the store would remain open. According to her new explanation, “Closing store!” did not mean she was closing the business. It meant she had closed the store approximately 90 minutes early that particular afternoon because she was upset about a personal emergency.

Rather than acknowledging that the post was confusing, the Trump Truth Store published a 41-second AI-generated fake newscast depicting ABC News anchor David Muir and imitating his voice. The video claimed that “Trump haters” had taken over Facebook and made it appear that the store was closing. Actual video below.

https://www.facebook.com/where2chailey/videos/1022175233965178/

Except Trump haters had not written “Closing store! Libs win!!!” The Trump Truth Store had.

Commenters responded with screenshots of the original post. One asked, “Are you trying to gaslight us?” Another observed that nothing says “fake news” quite like the store’s own closing announcement sitting directly beneath its denial.

The store then claimed the entire episode demonstrated how easily fake news could be created. In reality, it demonstrated how easily someone can publish a Facebook post and then become furious when people read it. Facebook reportedly removed a separate AI-generated Trump video posted by the store after flagging it for “fraud, scams and deceptive practices.”

The Perfect Miniature Version of MAGA

The Trump Truth Store could not have produced a more accurate miniature version of MAGA politics if it had tried. Make an unambiguous statement, blame liberals, deny the statement, label accurate reporting “fake news,” and then produce genuinely fake content to prove that everyone else is lying.

To be precise, these two stores have not both permanently closed. The Tennessee Trump Superstore announced its liquidation in mid-August and is preparing to shut down, although it has not provided a final date. The Trump Truth Store temporarily closed on March 26, reopened in mid-April and remains open with significantly reduced hours—despite appearing to announce another closure on August 20.

One store admitted that it ran out of customers. The other could not cover half its rent, temporarily closed, reopened, announced another closure, denied announcing it and then used a fake AI news anchor to accuse everyone else of spreading fake news.

The grift did not run out of merchandise. It ran out of paying customers.

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Video Version:

So many of you asked me to explain how Donald Trump became the “successful billionaire” on The Apprentice, especially after my recent breakdown of his long history of business failures. The short answer is that Mark Burnett did not discover America’s greatest businessman. He found a financially battered celebrity whose name still looked like a symbol of wealth—and cast him to play the role of America’s greatest businessman.

That distinction matters because The Apprentice did more than rescue Trump’s fading public image. It gave him a fictional record of executive leadership, broadcast that fiction into millions of American homes and eventually helped convince voters that a reality television character was qualified to run the country.

The man already existed. The greed, dishonesty and hunger for power were already there. What The Apprentice created was President Trump.

The Business Genius Was Always a Character

Before The Apprentice, there was The Art of the Deal. Published in 1987, the book introduced millions of Americans to the character Trump would spend the rest of his life playing: the self-made billionaire who could walk into any room, read everyone instantly and negotiate his way to victory.

Except Trump did not write it.

Tony Schwartz spent approximately 18 months studying Trump, listening to his phone calls and interviewing the people around him. According to Schwartz, Trump could not concentrate long enough to seriously discuss his own life or develop anything resembling a coherent business philosophy. Schwartz took Trump’s boasts, scattered stories and personality and transformed them into a compelling narrative.

Schwartz even created the phrase “truthful hyperbole,” which appeared in the book as an explanation for Trump’s habit of exaggerating. The phrase made relentless dishonesty sound like an innovative marketing technique. Howard Kaminsky, the former head of Random House, was more direct about Trump’s contribution to the book: “Trump didn’t write a postcard for us.”

Nevertheless, Trump’s name appeared on the cover, so Trump received the credit. The Art of the Deal became a bestseller and gave him something far more valuable than royalties: a mythology. America was introduced to Donald Trump through a polished character created by a talented writer who made Trump’s chaos sound like strategy.

The Banks Had a Donald Trump Problem

Trump’s actual business record looked nothing like the mythology.

I recently documented that record in detail, so I will not drag you through every bankrupt casino, failed airline and disastrous real-estate deal again. The condensed version is that Trump repeatedly borrowed enormous amounts of money, attached his name to a spectacular project and then discovered that the business could not generate enough revenue to support the debt.

The Plaza Hotel entered bankruptcy. The Trump Shuttle disappeared. His Atlantic City casino operations repeatedly sought bankruptcy protection. Between 1985 and 1994, Trump’s businesses reported more than $1 billion in losses to the Internal Revenue Service.

Trump’s defenders have spent years attempting to portray this as financial brilliance. They argue that sophisticated businesspeople use debt and bankruptcy strategically. That can be true, but filing for bankruptcy after making an unsustainable deal does not retroactively make the original deal intelligent.

Trump did, however, understand one crucial principle: If you owe a bank a small amount of money, you have a problem. If you owe several banks hundreds of millions of dollars, the banks have a problem too.

His lenders knew that immediately destroying Trump could also destroy their chances of recovering what he owed them. Banks restructured his debt, took control of assets and attempted to preserve whatever value remained. In some cases, keeping the Trump name attached to a property made financial sense because the name still carried marketing value.

That created an extraordinary divide between financial reality and public perception. Trump could lose control of a property while the public continued seeing “TRUMP” above the entrance. People saw the gold letters; they did not see the frantic debt negotiations, unpaid contractors, forgiven obligations or bankers attempting to minimize their losses.

The name created the impression that Trump still owned and controlled an enormous empire, even when much of the money, ownership and financial risk belonged to somebody else. The appearance of wealth survived the destruction happening underneath it.

Turning the Illusion Into a Product

As traditional lenders became understandably reluctant to finance Trump’s adventures, he increasingly shifted toward licensing his name. Instead of borrowing the money to develop a property himself, Trump could allow another developer to place his name on a building in exchange for a fee.

Someone else supplied the land. Someone else financed the construction. Someone else assumed most of the risk. Trump supplied the name and collected money for the appearance of his involvement.

This was a safer business model, but it also revealed what Trump’s most valuable product had become. It was not a superior hotel, casino, airline, university, steak or bottle of vodka. It was Donald Trump—or, more precisely, the public’s belief that the Trump name represented fantastic wealth and unmatched business success.

The failures were real, but the name survived them. The gold letters functioned like scenery, allowing Trump to stand in front of assets financed or controlled by other people and present the landscape as proof of his personal genius.

Then Mark Burnett entered the picture.

Mark Burnett Casts “The Boss”

In 2002, Burnett was filming a live Survivor finale at Wollman Rink in Central Park, which was operated by the Trump Organization. Burnett later recalled spotting Donald and Melania Trump in the front row and repeatedly acknowledging Trump while addressing the crowd. Afterward, Trump approached Burnett, called him a genius and said he hoped they could work together someday.

Burnett was already the king of reality television. Survivor had become a cultural phenomenon by placing ordinary people inside a manufactured competition and editing hundreds of hours of footage into a clear story filled with heroes, villains, conflict and suspense.

Now Burnett wanted to bring that formula into what he called the urban jungle of American capitalism. Contestants would compete for a job with a powerful business leader, and each episode would end with someone being eliminated.

Trump was perfect for the part—not because he was the most accomplished businessman in America, but because he already looked like a television character. He had the recognizable name, the Manhattan tower, the gold interiors, the private aircraft, the tabloid history, the enormous ego and an almost limitless hunger for attention.

Burnett was not selecting a chief executive to operate a complicated corporation. He was casting “The Boss,” and Trump already owned the costume.

Building a Better Trump

The real Trump did not always look as impressive as the character Burnett needed to sell. When production personnel inspected Trump’s actual office, they reportedly found it too cramped and unimpressive for the image the program intended to create.

So the show built a better version.

The famous boardroom was a set. The receptionist’s area was a set. Dramatic lighting and sweeping images of Manhattan, private aircraft, limousines and towering buildings communicated enormous wealth and authority before Trump even spoke.

The show was not documenting Trump’s business empire. It was creating a visual argument that Trump must be successful. Every image told viewers that this was where power lived and that the man sitting at the head of the table had earned the right to judge everyone entering the room.

Then the editors went to work on Trump himself.

Former producers and editors have described Trump arriving at boardroom sessions without fully understanding what had happened during the contestants’ assignments. He could ramble, contradict himself or fire someone whose performance did not logically justify elimination.

Former editor Jonathan Braun described having to “reverse-engineer” episodes so Trump’s decisions appeared reasonable. If Trump eliminated a capable contestant, editors could search through hours of footage for moments that made that person appear incompetent. Producer Katherine Walker has said the show cleaned up Trump’s speech to present him as his “best self.”

Consider what that means. The central promise of The Apprentice was that viewers were watching one of America’s greatest businessmen evaluate information, recognize mistakes and make brilliant executive decisions. In reality, Trump could make the decision first, leaving editors to search for a logical explanation afterward.

The judgment was manufactured. The competence was assembled in postproduction. The boardroom was not where America witnessed Trump’s leadership; it was where television professionals created the appearance of it.

Fake Success Produces Real Money

The Apprentice premiered in January 2004 and became a massive hit. Its first-season finale attracted more than 28 million viewers. Week after week, Americans watched ambitious professionals compete for Trump’s approval while he arrived in luxury vehicles, occupied an enormous boardroom and dismissed one contestant with the phrase “You’re fired.”

The show transformed Trump from a fading New York tabloid personality into a national household name. More importantly, it rehabilitated the exact reputation his real business record should have destroyed.

Then the fictional billionaire character began generating real wealth. Tax records reviewed by The New York Times indicated that Trump earned approximately $197 million directly from The Apprentice and another $230 million from licensing arrangements, endorsements and other opportunities created by his renewed fame.

That is roughly $427 million generated by a television character.

Trump then pointed to that money as retroactive evidence that the character had always been authentic. He was rich, so he must have been a brilliant businessman all along. In reality, the television show did not uncover a hidden business genius; it created an extraordinarily profitable commercial for Donald Trump.

His inherited wealth produced the original appearance of success. The Art of the Deal transformed that appearance into mythology. His financial failures nearly destroyed the mythology. His banks preserved enough of the image to protect their investments. Trump licensed the image to projects financed by other people, and The Apprentice broadcast it into millions of American homes as reality.

It was all a lie, but eventually the lie began generating real money.

From the Boardroom to the White House

By the time Trump entered presidential politics, Americans had spent more than a decade watching him perform executive leadership on television. He sat at the head of a table while people presented problems, defended themselves and competed for his approval. Trump appeared to absorb the information, identify the person responsible and resolve every conflict with a decisive announcement.

That is not how democratic government works. It is, however, extremely effective authoritarian fantasy.

Millions of voters believed they had personally witnessed Trump run a major organization. They had watched him make difficult decisions, evaluate successful people and separate winners from losers.

Except they had not.

They had watched a heavily edited television program in which producers designed the environment, writers shaped the story and editors made Trump’s decisions appear more intelligent than they were. NBC gave Trump a fictional record of executive leadership, and cable news later gave his presidential campaign billions of dollars in free exposure because the reality television star generated ratings.

Trump understood how to transform politics into another reality show. He created conflict, assigned villains, humiliated opponents, invented catchphrases and ensured that the cameras never looked away. Those are genuine talents, but they are the talents of a performer and propagandist—not a brilliant businessman or competent president.

America confused the ability to command attention with the ability to lead.

It Was All a Lie

Donald Trump’s greatest business achievement was never building casinos, hotels or skyscrapers. It was marketing Donald Trump.

His father supplied the original fortune. Tony Schwartz supplied the words. Banks supplied the loans and absorbed the losses. Contractors supplied labor they were not always paid for. Other developers supplied the buildings. Mark Burnett supplied the character. NBC supplied the set. Editors supplied the competence. Cable news supplied the attention.

American voters supplied the presidency.

That is how The Apprentice created President Trump. It did not create the man, his greed, his dishonesty or his obsession with power. It created something far more politically valuable: the nationwide belief that Donald Trump was a decisive, self-made billionaire who knew how to run things.

The boardroom was fake. The business genius was fake. The leadership was fake. But the presidency—and the damage it caused—became terrifyingly real.

Support This Work

The Grizzly Report is for people who are tired of being manipulated by headlines, political theater and confidently repeated lies. I do the digging, verify the claims and connect the pieces so you can understand what is happening, why it matters and what the people in power would prefer you never examine too closely.

If you regularly read this work and believe independent reporting like this needs to survive, please become a paid subscriber today. Reading is valuable, but paid subscriptions are what give me the time and independence to investigate these stories without answering to political parties, corporate sponsors or algorithms. If you have been considering upgrading, this is the moment when your decision can make a real difference.

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Not ready for a paid subscription? You can still help this reporting reach thousands of people who may never encounter it otherwise. Share this article with one person who needs the receipts, post it to your social media, or buy me a coffee to support the research behind the next investigation. Independent media does not have a billion-dollar distribution system; it has readers willing to carry important work into rooms the algorithm will not.

To my Grizzlies who already subscribe, share this work and continue showing up: you are not supporting “an influencer.” You are funding independent reporting, public education and a community committed to defending democracy with facts instead of surrendering to fear. I deeply appreciate every one of you. 🐻 💛

Video Version:

Why is Jared Kushner—a private businessman with no official government job—holding private meetings with the man who may soon become Speaker of the House?

Kushner was not elected. He does not work at the White House, and the Trump administration has not publicly shown that he holds a current security clearance. Yet Trump has placed him in the middle of American foreign policy, and now Kushner is privately meeting with Hakeem Jeffries, an elected official who is supposed to work for us.

The New York Times reported on August 23 that Kushner met privately with Jeffries in New York “in recent weeks.” That likely places the meeting sometime between late July and August 22, but the exact date has not been released. Jeffries has not explained who arranged it, why Kushner was there or whether their conversation involved Gaza, federal money, reconstruction contracts or future congressional investigations.

I cannot prove Jeffries promised Kushner anything, and I cannot prove they discussed Gaza. But I can show you what happened before they met. Once those events are placed in the correct order, the meeting becomes much harder to dismiss as an ordinary political conversation.

Why Kushner May Need Jeffries

The November 3 midterm election is only 70 days away. If Democrats win control of the House, Jeffries is expected to become Speaker—one of the most powerful positions in Washington.

The Speaker helps decide which bills receive a vote and which Democrats lead the House’s major committees. Those committees can investigate Trump, his Cabinet, his family, his friends and their businesses. They can demand documents, call witnesses, issue subpoenas and hold public hearings about corruption, government contracts and taxpayer money.

Put simply, Kushner met privately with the man who may soon control whether Congress investigates Kushner.

Before Jeffries could become Speaker, however, he first had to remain in Congress. That is where Zohran Mamdani and New York City Councilmember Chi Ossé enter the story.

How Mamdani Helped Clear Jeffries’s Path

In November 2025, Ossé filed paperwork to challenge Jeffries in the Democratic primary for New York’s Eighth Congressional District. Ossé was a 27-year-old councilmember known for fighting rent increases and reaching younger voters online. He had recently joined the Democratic Socialists of America and argued that Democratic leaders were failing to fight Trump or offer voters a believable alternative.

Ossé was not running for Speaker. He was trying to take Jeffries’s House seat. But if Jeffries lost that seat, he would be removed from Congress and could not become Speaker.

Ossé began as a long shot. One internal poll showed Jeffries leading 72 percent to 21 percent. Still, a serious primary would have forced Jeffries to defend his leadership, answer difficult questions and face growing frustration among Democrats who believe party leaders are giving speeches instead of fighting.

Mamdani had already shown that a young insurgent could defeat a powerful establishment Democrat. With DSA volunteers, fundraising and organizational support, Ossé might have turned a weak challenge into a genuine contest.

On November 19, Mamdani attended a DSA candidate meeting and personally urged members not to recommend endorsing Ossé. Reporting indicated that Mamdani argued it was not the right time to challenge Jeffries.

The vote was close. There were 626 votes against recommending Ossé, 555 votes in his favor and 24 abstentions. The recommendation failed by only 71 votes.

Without support from DSA, Mamdani or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ossé concluded that he could not build a viable campaign. He dropped out on December 5, less than three weeks after Mamdani opposed his endorsement.

Mamdani may have believed he was making a practical decision. As New York’s new mayor, he needed help from Democratic leaders in Washington while Trump threatened the city’s federal funding. Mamdani also needed congressional support for his housing and affordability plans.

Whatever his reasoning, the outcome was clear: Jeffries lost his most serious Democratic challenger.

Another Democrat, Vance Bostic, was later removed from the ballot. With Ossé gone and Bostic disqualified, the June 23 Democratic primary was canceled. Jeffries became the party’s nominee without voters casting a single primary ballot.

Jeffries denied coordinating with Mamdani to stop Ossé, and there is no proof of a secret agreement between them. What we know is that Mamdani opposed the endorsement, it failed by a narrow margin, Ossé withdrew and Jeffries escaped a primary.

Mamdani did not make Jeffries Speaker. But he helped protect Jeffries’s path back to Congress—and therefore his path to the speakership.

Democrats Have Another Option

Jeffries is not the only Democrat capable of leading the House. If he were removed from Congress or failed to win enough support from his colleagues, House Democrats would choose someone else.

The most obvious alternative is Katherine Clark, the Democratic whip and the current number-two House Democrat. Her job is to count votes, communicate with members and help keep the caucus together. No replacement would be automatic, and other Democrats—including Pete Aguilar or a progressive candidate—could compete, but Clark would begin as a serious contender.

Clark has also accepted substantial AIPAC-linked support. One tracker using federal campaign records places her Israel-lobby PAC support at approximately $930,000. A broader calculation that includes additional AIPAC-related contributions puts the figure closer to $1.4 million.

That history cannot be ignored. But neither can what Clark did on July 15.

The House considered an amendment that would remove $3.3 billion in aid to Israel. Clark voted to remove the funding. Jeffries voted to keep it.

Afterward, AIPAC removed Clark and several other Democrats who supported the amendment from the donation options on its fundraising website. In other words, Clark defied AIPAC on a major vote, and AIPAC responded by cutting off its fundraising help.

That does not erase the money Clark previously accepted, nor does it suddenly make her immune from scrutiny. It demonstrates, however, that accepting AIPAC-linked money does not make every future decision unavoidable. Clark took the money and then broke with AIPAC when the vote came, even though she knew there could be a financial price.

Jeffries made the opposite choice.

That difference matters because Democrats are not trapped. They do not have to make Jeffries Speaker. They already have another senior leader who demonstrated that she was willing to lose AIPAC’s support rather than vote to preserve the aid.

If Jeffries refuses to promise a full investigation of Kushner and Trump’s Gaza operation, Democrats cannot pretend they have no alternative.

Jeffries and Kushner Go Back to 2018

This summer’s meeting was not the beginning of the Jeffries-Kushner relationship. The two men worked together in 2018 on the First Step Act, a bipartisan prison reform law.

The law shortened some extreme federal sentences, expanded education and job programs in prison, made compassionate release easier for some sick and elderly prisoners and stopped most prisons from shackling pregnant women.

Kushner had a personal reason to care about prison reform. His father, Charles Kushner, served approximately 14 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to tax crimes, illegal campaign contributions and witness retaliation.

The retaliation scheme was especially disturbing. Charles Kushner hired a sex worker to seduce his brother-in-law, arranged for the encounter to be recorded and sent the recording to his own sister as revenge. People involved in passing the First Step Act said his father’s imprisonment made criminal justice reform personal for Jared Kushner.

That explains how Jeffries and Kushner began working together, but their contact did not end in 2018. The New York Times reported that they remained in touch and met privately again in 2025, although the date, location and purpose of that meeting remain unknown.

Then they met privately again this summer.

This is not a new connection formed because Democrats may win the House. It is a political relationship that has lasted for approximately eight years.

The Money Around Jeffries

Kushner’s relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu goes back even further. Netanyahu knew the Kushner family for decades, was close to Jared’s father and reportedly stayed at their home when Jared was young.

Trump later placed Kushner in charge of Middle East policy despite his lack of diplomatic experience. Kushner helped create the Abraham Accords, which established normal business and diplomatic relationships between Israel and several Arab countries without first resolving Palestinian statehood.

Jeffries’s connection to Israel is political. He has long been one of Israel’s strongest supporters in Democratic leadership, and AIPAC’s network has helped fund both Jeffries and the Democrats whose votes he needs to become Speaker.

Trackers using federal records placed Jeffries’s total AIPAC-linked and pro-Israel support at roughly $1 million by 2025. The precise number depends on whether a tracker counts direct PAC checks, donations gathered through AIPAC or outside spending.

One recent payment is much easier to identify.

Jeffries controls a joint fundraising committee called the Jeffries Battleground Protection Fund. It collects large contributions and distributes the money among Jeffries’s campaign, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and more than a dozen Democrats running in competitive districts.

On May 20, AIPAC PAC sent that fund two payments totaling $149,300. AIPAC was not merely helping Jeffries protect his own seat. It was helping him elect other House Democrats—the same Democrats whose votes he needs to become Speaker.

Then came the July 15 vote on Israel’s aid. Most Democrats who cast a yes-or-no vote supported removing the $3.3 billion. Clark voted to remove it. Jeffries voted to keep it.

This does not prove that AIPAC bought Jeffries’s vote. But the money and the vote are documented facts, and voters have every right to examine them together—especially when another senior Democratic leader who also accepted AIPAC-linked money chose differently.

That brings us to the reason Kushner may need Jeffries sitting in the Speaker’s chair.

Kushner’s Gaza Project Needs Congress

Trump has created an organization called the Board of Peace to oversee security, government and reconstruction in Gaza. Trump made himself chairman, and Kushner sits on the board.

This is not a ceremonial peace committee. It is a massive rebuilding project involving foreign governments, security forces, private contractors and tens of billions of dollars.

Kushner has promoted a Gaza redevelopment plan worth approximately $30 billion. It includes housing, businesses, tourism and major construction projects. Trump has promised $10 billion in American support for the Board, while his administration has announced more than $206 million for a security force connected to the broader Gaza plan.

Trump and Kushner cannot simply reach into the Treasury and take unlimited amounts of money. Congress controls federal spending.

The administration may be able to redirect some money that Congress previously approved. The State Department has already notified Congress that it intends to send an initial $50 million payment to the Board and move more than $206 million toward the Gaza security project.

That does not give Kushner a blank check. Congress can demand an explanation of where the money came from, block future funding, place conditions on how the money is spent and refuse to approve additional money when the administration asks for more.

That is the heart of this story: Kushner is helping construct a massive international project that needs American funding, and the next Speaker could either keep that money flowing or shut it down.

The situation becomes even more concerning because Kushner owns Affinity Partners, an investment company managing billions of dollars from governments in the Middle East. Some of those same governments are being asked to help finance Gaza’s reconstruction.

There is no public proof that Affinity Partners currently has a Gaza contract or direct Gaza investment. But Kushner is helping design a massive rebuilding market while managing money from governments that could participate in it. That possible conflict deserves investigation before the money and contracts begin flowing.

If Democrats win the House, Kushner could face a Speaker who turns off the financial taps and opens a serious investigation. Or he could face a Speaker who allows the money to continue moving while ensuring that any investigation moves very slowly.

That is what Jeffries could potentially do for Kushner.

Keep the Money Flowing and the Investigations Slow

The Speaker does not personally write federal checks or issue every subpoena. But the Speaker controls the House agenda, helps choose committee leaders and influences which investigations receive staff, funding and attention. The Speaker can bring funding bills to the floor or prevent them from receiving a vote.

A determined Speaker could tell the Trump administration that it will receive no additional money until Congress sees the plans, contracts and financial records. House investigators could demand emails, bank records and testimony from Kushner and the other people operating the Board.

Congress could also investigate whether Kushner’s private company or its foreign investors could profit from decisions Kushner is helping make.

A cooperative Speaker could make very different choices. He could allow funding to continue, place cautious Democrats in charge of the investigations, deny investigators the staff or resources they need and delay important enforcement votes. He could then assure the public that Congress was carefully “reviewing the situation” while the money and contracts continued moving.

Kushner may need two things from the next Speaker: keep the financial taps open and keep the investigations slow.

Katherine Clark has already demonstrated that she is willing to break with AIPAC on a major vote, even when it costs her fundraising support.

Jeffries has not demonstrated the same independence.

Look at the Timeline

Jeffries and Kushner began working together in 2018. They remained in contact and met privately again in 2025.

In November 2025, Ossé challenged Jeffries. Mamdani opposed DSA support for Ossé, the endorsement recommendation narrowly failed and Ossé dropped out. In January 2026, Trump created the Board of Peace and placed Kushner inside it.

On May 20, AIPAC PAC sent $149,300 into Jeffries’s joint fundraising operation. On June 23, Jeffries became the Democratic nominee without facing a primary vote.

On July 15, Clark voted to remove the $3.3 billion in Israel aid. Jeffries voted to keep it. AIPAC then cut off fundraising help for Clark and several other Democrats who supported removing the aid.

On July 30, the State Department informed Congress that it intended to move more than $206 million toward the Gaza security project. On August 3, Board officials briefed senior aides working for Jeffries and the other top congressional leaders.

Around that same period, Kushner privately met with Jeffries. Kushner reportedly suggested that Jeffries also meet Susie Wiles, Trump’s chief of staff and another member of the Board.

The public learned about the Kushner-Jeffries meeting on August 23. Jeffries said they discussed housing, immigration and the cost of living, but he did not disclose the meeting’s date, explain who arranged it or say whether they discussed Gaza, federal funding, reconstruction contracts or future investigations.

Those are not unreasonable questions. They are the most obvious questions in the world.

Democrats Have a Choice

We cannot prove that Jeffries promised Kushner anything, and we cannot prove that they discussed Gaza. But we can see why Kushner would want a relationship with the man who may soon control the House.

Kushner has a massive Gaza project on the horizon. It needs American money, will create valuable contracts and raises serious questions about conflicts of interest. The next Speaker can either demand answers before the money flows or help keep the project moving while Congress looks the other way.

Democrats also have another option. Katherine Clark is already the number-two House Democrat. She accepted AIPAC-linked money, but when the Israel aid vote came, she broke with AIPAC and accepted the financial consequences.

Democrats cannot claim Jeffries is their only choice.

If Jeffries wants to become Speaker, he should make one clear promise before Democrats vote for him: a full public investigation of Jared Kushner and the Board of Peace, no additional money without complete answers and no special treatment for anyone.

The evidence does not prove a secret deal. It proves that Mamdani helped clear Jeffries’s path back to Congress, AIPAC helped fund Jeffries’s political operation, Clark broke with AIPAC when the vote came and Kushner approached Jeffries while his Gaza project was seeking American money and facing the possibility of congressional investigation.

Kushner may need the next Speaker to keep the financial taps open and the investigation slow. Jeffries needs to tell the public whether that is what they discussed.

Public power requires public answers.

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Video Version:

We all know about Donald Trump’s three marriages, his five children with three women, and his six business bankruptcies. We know about Trump University, the charity that was shut down, the sexual-abuse verdict, and the 34 felony convictions. We know that many of the people who work closely with him eventually resign, get fired, or leave office warning the rest of us that he is dangerously unfit.

But the real story is not the number of scandals. It is the pattern connecting them.

Donald Trump has spent his entire life inheriting valuable things, extracting whatever benefits him, destroying what remains, denying the damage, and forcing other people to absorb the consequences. He did it with his father’s fortune, his casinos, his shareholders, his customers, his employees, and his political allies. Now he is applying that same operating system to the United States.

What I Mean by “Loser”

I do not use the word loser lightly. In fact, I hate it. I do not allow people to use it in my home because losing is an event, not an identity. A child who loses a game is not a loser. A person who starts a business and fails is not a loser. A candidate who loses an election and accepts the result honorably is not a loser.

Failure is how serious people learn.

A loser is something different. A loser is someone who receives extraordinary advantages, repeatedly destroys what other people built, refuses to learn, lies about the destruction, and forces somebody else to absorb the cost. He confuses attention with respect, cruelty with strength, extraction with achievement, and escaping responsibility with genuine success.

By that definition, Donald Trump is a fucking loser. He is also an extraordinarily successful celebrity and salesman who has made enormous amounts of money and won the presidency twice. Those facts do not disprove the argument. They explain why he may be the most successful loser in American history: his greatest talent is transferring his failures to other people while preserving the fiction that he won.

Born in the Owner’s Box

Trump spent decades claiming that his father gave him a “small loan” of one million dollars. The documented figure is at least $413 million in 2018 dollars, much of it transferred to Trump while his parents were still alive. Adjusted for inflation, that is roughly $550 million today.

Donald Trump was not born on third base. He was born in the owner’s box and spent his life telling working people he built the stadium.

Even with that extraordinary head start, Trump’s businesses reported $1.17 billion in losses between 1985 and 1994. His companies entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy six times. Those were corporate bankruptcies rather than personal bankruptcies, but that distinction reveals the mechanism behind his entire career: the companies, lenders, contractors, workers, customers, and shareholders could absorb the losses while Donald Trump protected Donald Trump.

Nothing demonstrates that pattern better than what happened at the Trump Taj Mahal.

The Analyst Who Did the Math

Trump financed the Taj Mahal with approximately $675 million in high-yield junk bonds carrying a brutal 14 percent interest rate. That created an annual interest burden of approximately $94.5 million before the casino paid its employees, utilities, suppliers, taxes, or any other operating expenses.

Before the casino opened, gaming analyst Marvin Roffman examined the numbers. Roffman worked for the investment firm Janney Montgomery Scott and calculated that the Taj Mahal would need to generate approximately $1.3 million every day just to service its debt. At that time, no casino in history had consistently produced that level of revenue.

Roffman told The Wall Street Journal that the numbers did not work. Trump responded by sending a furious letter to Roffman’s employer demanding a public apology and Roffman’s immediate termination. He also threatened the company with a massive lawsuit.

Roffman’s employer initially pressured him to sign an apology, but Trump demanded an even harsher version. Roffman withdrew the apology, and the firm fired him.

The Trump Taj Mahal opened in April 1990. By November, it had defaulted on an interest payment. In July 1991—just 15 months after its grand opening—the casino filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Roffman was exactly right. He later won a $750,000 arbitration award against his former employer and reached a separate settlement with Trump.

Trump did not possess some brilliant insight that the analyst failed to understand. Trump had a catastrophically bad plan, and when a qualified professional explained why it would fail, Trump tried to destroy the professional.

That is Donald Trump in one story: ignore the math, threaten the expert, punish the truth-teller, fail exactly as predicted, and leave everyone else to clean up the wreckage.

Even His Casino Needed Daddy’s Money

The next story sounds so absurd that people assume it must be exaggerated. It is not.

In December 1990, Trump Castle was desperately short of the cash it needed to make an $18.4 million interest payment. Fred Trump sent an attorney named Howard Snyder into the casino carrying a certified check for $3.35 million.

Snyder used the check to purchase 670 gray, high-stakes casino chips worth $5,000 each. He placed the chips in a bag and walked out of the casino without making a single bet. The following day, another $150,000 was wired to purchase 30 additional chips.

Fred Trump had secretly moved $3.5 million into his son’s failing casino while disguising the transaction as gambling activity. Because the chips were never used, the maneuver functioned as an undisclosed, interest-free loan. New Jersey gaming regulators later ruled that it violated state casino-financing rules and imposed a civil penalty.

Even Donald Trump’s casino had to be rescued by his father pretending to gamble.

That detail demolishes the character Trump eventually played on television. The real Donald Trump was not a self-made master of risk who saw opportunities ordinary people missed. He was a reckless heir whose father had to send a lawyer into a casino with millions of dollars so the business could survive its next debt payment.

Everyone Else Lost. Trump Got Paid.

Trump eventually invited ordinary Americans to buy shares in Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts. Under his leadership, the publicly traded company lost more than $1 billion, and its share price collapsed from approximately $35 to as little as 17 cents.

A person who invested $100 in Trump’s company in 1995 could sell that investment for approximately $4 a decade later. The same $100 invested in MGM would have grown to roughly $600. Trump’s shareholders were nearly wiped out, but Trump personally collected more than $44 million in salary, bonuses, and other compensation, along with additional benefits and private deals.

That is the Trump business model. He does not prevent failure; he transfers it. The lenders lose, the contractors lose, the shareholders lose, and the customers lose. Donald Trump gets paid.

Trump University applied the same formula to people who believed they were purchasing his real-estate expertise. The operation collected roughly $40 million from students, including veterans, teachers, retired police officers, and working families. Some paid as much as $35,000.

One student, 57-year-old Kathleen Meese, was caring for a son with Down syndrome when a salesperson pressured her into purchasing a $25,000 program. She was told that she needed to do it for her family, so she maxed out her credit card. She later said she never made a penny from the program.

Trump promised he would never settle the fraud lawsuits filed against the operation. He settled them for $25 million.

The Charity That Benefited Donald Trump

Then there was the Donald J. Trump Foundation. His family charity used charitable money to settle legal obligations belonging to Trump-controlled businesses, purchase a portrait of Donald Trump, and support activity connected to his presidential campaign.

The foundation was dissolved under court supervision. Trump admitted facts establishing the misuse of its funds and paid $2 million in damages to legitimate charities. Donald Jr., Ivanka, and Eric were ordered to complete training on the responsibilities of charity officers and directors.

The family is not permanently banned from operating every charity in New York, as people sometimes claim. The precise truth is humiliating enough: Trump’s foundation was shut down, and any future charitable organization he establishes must use independent directors, legal and accounting oversight, and additional reporting requirements.

Trump inherited hundreds of millions of dollars, yet still found a way to misuse money donated for charitable purposes. The amount was not the point. The point was that Trump saw another pool of money and believed it existed for his benefit.

Loyalty Only Flows Toward Trump

Trump’s personal life reveals the same pattern. He has been married three times and has five children with three women. Divorce is not a moral failure, and blended families are not evidence that someone is a bad person. The issue is the hypocrisy of a man who demands absolute loyalty from everyone while repeatedly refusing to practice it himself.

His first marriage collapsed amid his public relationship with Marla Maples. He later married Maples, divorced her, and married Melania in 2005.

Stormy Daniels testified under oath that she had sex with Trump in July 2006, approximately four months after Melania gave birth to Barron. Trump denies that encounter. What cannot be denied is the $130,000 payment made shortly before the 2016 election and Trump’s subsequent conviction on all 34 felony counts connected to concealing the reimbursement.

A separate jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming E. Jean Carroll. The resulting $5 million judgment is now final.

Trump demands fidelity from wives, employees, Cabinet officials, political parties, voters, and entire countries. He treats loyalty as a one-way debt everyone owes him until the moment they are no longer useful.

Television Sold the Illusion

How did a spoiled rich boy with bankrupt casinos, destroyed investors, a sham university, a misused charity, and a lifetime of personal betrayal become America’s symbol of success?

The Apprentice.

The program did not document Donald Trump. It manufactured him. Trump’s real offices were too shabby and cramped to create the impression producers wanted, so they constructed a more impressive boardroom and supplied the lighting, helicopters, music, reaction shots, edited dialogue, and ritual humiliation.

Former producer Bill Pruitt has said Trump was not remotely the successful tycoon the show portrayed. Former NBC marketing chief John Miller later apologized to America for helping promote that false image.

“I helped create a monster,” Miller said.

Television did not discover a brilliant billionaire. It placed a failing businessman inside a fictional world where he played one.

That entire story deserves its own investigation because Trump was not originally selected for The Apprentice as part of some right-wing master plan. Television executives chose him because they believed he looked like America’s idea of a billionaire. The right wing weaponized that character later.

If you want the full story of How Television Created Donald Trump, tell me in the comments.

For now, the relevant point is simpler: the television character was never real. The loser was.

The People He Hired Tried to Warn Us

The people who eventually worked for President Trump discovered the same man contractors, analysts, lenders, and investors had encountered decades earlier. During Trump’s first administration, 92 percent of the senior White House positions tracked by the Brookings Institution experienced turnover.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Trump made a mockery of the Constitution. Defense Secretary Mark Esper called him a threat to democracy. National Security Adviser John Bolton called him unfit. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson described a man who would not read and understood very little about history or international affairs.

Attorney General Bill Barr predicted that Trump’s behavior would produce chaos. Mike Pence said anyone who places himself above the Constitution should never be president again. John Kelly, Trump’s longest-serving White House chief of staff, said Trump fit the general definition of a fascist and preferred a dictator’s approach to government.

General Mark Milley, Trump’s own chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called him “fascist to the core.” These were not Democrats speculating about Trump from television studios. Trump selected these people, and they watched him exercise power from inside the room.

Trump responded by calling many of them weak, stupid, disloyal, or losers. Think about the absurdity of that defense. He promised to hire “the best people,” personally selected them, and then declared nearly all of them incompetent the moment they described what they witnessed.

His second administration is repeating the same pattern. When people who work closely with one man repeatedly resign, get fired, or warn the public about him, the common denominator is the man.

He Is Doing to America What He Did to His Casinos

The latest conflict with Canada is simply the newest receipt. Trump inherited NAFTA, declared it the worst trade agreement in history, replaced it with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, and celebrated the USMCA as a historic triumph.

Now he is destabilizing his own deal, imposing 50 percent tariffs on billions of dollars in Canadian goods and triggering Canadian retaliation. He inherited something valuable, called it garbage, replaced it with something carrying his name, undermined his own replacement, forced everybody else to pay for the instability, and declared victory.

That is not merely his trade policy. It is his entire life story.

Trump followed the same formula with Iran. He inherited a multinational nuclear agreement that placed verifiable limits on Iran’s nuclear program. The agreement was imperfect, but international inspectors repeatedly verified Iran’s compliance with its central nuclear restrictions.

Trump destroyed the agreement without producing a stronger replacement, largely because Barack Obama had negotiated it. Iran expanded its nuclear activity, enriched uranium to significantly higher levels, installed more advanced centrifuges, and reduced international visibility into its program.

Trump responded to the enlarged threat with war. Americans have died, hundreds have been wounded, tens of billions of dollars have been spent, energy prices have climbed, and the Strait of Hormuz remains disrupted. There is still no durable peace or completed agreement achieving the administration’s declared objectives.

Trump inherited a monitored problem, destroyed the mechanism containing it, allowed the threat to grow, and then launched a war against the larger crisis he helped create. He set the fire and demanded applause for arriving with a gasoline can.

The Country Absorbs the Losses

Trump inherited the world’s strongest major economy and promised lower prices, fiscal discipline, affordable housing, and peace. The national debt has crossed $40 trillion. His tax-and-spending law is projected to add trillions to federal deficits while cutting Medicaid and food assistance.

The Congressional Budget Office projects approximately $1.2 trillion less in Medicaid spending between 2026 and 2035, with 13.1 million fewer Medicaid enrollees by 2035. SNAP has suffered the largest cuts in its history, shifting costs to states and threatening food assistance for millions.

Meanwhile, inflation was 3.4 percent in July. Energy prices were nearly 15 percent higher than a year earlier, gasoline was up almost 25 percent, and 30-year mortgage rates remained around 6.7 percent.

The man who received the modern equivalent of roughly $550 million from his father is making food, housing, and health care more difficult for working families to afford. That is not populism. It is extraction wearing a trucker hat.

The same contradiction defines “Make America Healthy Again.” Trump promised to improve public health while his administration eliminated roughly 20 percent of the FDA’s workforce and approximately 25 percent of the CDC’s. The CDC team responsible for tracking foodborne parasites shrank from eleven scientists to three.

Those cuts did not create contaminated food. They weakened the country’s ability to detect contamination, connect cases, trace the source, coordinate across borders, and stop outbreaks before more people became sick.

An outbreak connected to iceberg lettuce has caused more than 10,000 confirmed illnesses, hundreds of hospitalizations, and two deaths. A Salmonella outbreak linked to jalapeños has spread across 32 states. Another outbreak connected to sprouts has reached 15 states.

You cannot make America healthy by dismantling public health. Prevention looks like waste only to people incapable of understanding the value of a catastrophe that never happened.

The Most Valuable Inheritance of All

The largest inheritance Trump is destroying is not his father’s money. It is American power.

Trump inherited the world’s dominant currency, its deepest capital markets, alliances built over eight decades, integrated supply chains, military partnerships that deterred wars, and a reputation—sometimes deserved and sometimes not—that an American commitment would outlast the president who made it.

Only 11 percent of Europeans in one recent international survey described the United States as an ally sharing their interests and values. In Canada, one recent poll found that only 9 percent considered the United States a trustworthy ally.

Countries are not merely complaining about America. They are spending money to need us less. Canada is expanding trade outside the United States. Europe is building more independent military capacity. Governments are investing in alternative suppliers, shipping routes, payment systems, weapons programs, and diplomatic relationships.

The dollar remains the world’s dominant reserve currency, and nobody can honestly prove that Trump has permanently destroyed it. But financial power and alliances are trust systems. Trump is teaching every government on Earth that dependence on the United States is a dangerous political risk.

Those relationships will not simply return when Trump leaves office. A future president can apologize and rebuild some goodwill, but countries will not dismantle newly constructed ports, factories, pipelines, payment networks, weapons systems, or supply chains because America elected a nicer person.

They now understand that American voters can elect another Trump.

This Was Completely Predictable

Donald Trump’s entire life has followed one consistent pattern. He inherits extraordinary value, extracts whatever benefits him, destroys what remains, denies the damage, blames somebody else, and leaves everyone around him holding the bag.

He did it with his father’s money. He did it with his casinos and shareholders. He did it with Trump University, his charity, his marriages, his employees, and his political appointees. He did it with the Iran nuclear agreement, and he is doing it with his own North American trade agreement.

Now he is applying the same pattern to the economy, public health, our alliances, our international reputation, and the United States itself.

None of this was unpredictable. Trump did not suddenly become reckless, dishonest, incompetent, vindictive, or incapable of learning after entering the White House. He brought the same operating system that bankrupted his casinos into the most powerful office on Earth.

America was warned by the contractors he did not pay, the investors who lost their money, the students who purchased his promises, the charities whose money he misused, the experts he punished, and the officials who worked beside him. We were not missing the evidence.

We ignored it.

Donald Trump has spent his entire life calling other people losers because somewhere underneath the inherited money, the television sets, the political rallies, and the desperate performance of strength, he knows exactly what he is.

Donald Trump is a fucking loser.

And now America is holding the bag.

Support This Work

The Grizzly Report is for people who are tired of being manipulated by headlines, political theater and confidently repeated lies. I do the digging, verify the claims and connect the pieces so you can understand what is happening, why it matters and what the people in power would prefer you never examine too closely.

If you regularly read this work and believe independent reporting like this needs to survive, please become a paid subscriber today. Reading is valuable, but paid subscriptions are what give me the time and independence to investigate these stories without answering to political parties, corporate sponsors or algorithms. If you have been considering upgrading, this is the moment when your decision can make a real difference.

Not ready for a paid subscription? You can still help this reporting reach thousands of people who may never encounter it otherwise. Share this article with one person who needs the receipts, post it to your social media, or buy me a coffee to support the research behind the next investigation. Independent media does not have a billion-dollar distribution system; it has readers willing to carry important work into rooms the algorithm will not.

To my Grizzlies who already subscribe, share this work and continue showing up: you are not supporting “an influencer.” You are funding independent reporting, public education and a community committed to defending democracy with facts instead of surrendering to fear. I deeply appreciate every one of you. 💙🐻

Support This Work

The Grizzly Report is for people who are tired of being manipulated by headlines, political theater and confidently repeated lies. I do the digging, verify the claims and connect the pieces so you can understand what is happening, why it matters and what the people in power would prefer you never examine too closely.

If you regularly read this work and believe independent reporting like this needs to survive, please become a paid subscriber today. Reading is valuable, but paid subscriptions are what give me the time and independence to investigate these stories without answering to political parties, corporate sponsors or algorithms. If you have been considering upgrading, this is the moment when your decision can make a real difference.

Subscribe now

Not ready for a paid subscription? You can still help this reporting reach thousands of people who may never encounter it otherwise. Share this article with one person who needs the receipts, post it to your social media, or buy me a coffee to support the research behind the next investigation. Independent media does not have a billion-dollar distribution system; it has readers willing to carry important work into rooms the algorithm will not.

To my Grizzlies who already subscribe, share this work and continue showing up: you are not supporting “an influencer.” You are funding independent reporting, public education and a community committed to defending democracy with facts instead of surrendering to fear. I deeply appreciate every one of you. 💙🐻

Video Version:

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I was watching Grey’s Anatomy with my daughter when one of the doctors looked at the clock and solemnly announced, “Time of death.” For reasons I cannot explain, my immediate thought was: God, we have lost so many celebrities to MAGA.

Some of them had long, productive careers. Some gave us unforgettable music, beloved movies and championship victories. A few showed early warning signs but might have been saved with immediate treatment. Others arrived at the hospital politically brain-dead, wearing a red hat and demanding horse dewormer.

So, put on your scrubs. We have rounds to make.

The Easy Diagnoses

Let’s begin with Robert James Ritchie, better known as Kid Rock. He could have been remembered for successfully combining rock, rap and country music—and for giving divorced fathers something to play while purchasing fireworks across state lines. His biggest mainstream hit, “All Summer Long,” borrowed from enough other famous songs that it should legally be classified as a group project.

Then, on February 1, 2016, Kid Rock told Rolling Stone that he was “digging Trump” and believed Trump should run the country like a business. By 2024, he was performing at the Republican National Convention in front of a giant American flag while shouting modified lyrics about Trump. The condition was terminal.

Cause of MAGA: Chronic exposure to gas-station sunglasses and a dangerous buildup of divorced-dad energy.
Time of MAGA: February 1, 2016.

Kid Rock will now be remembered as the man who looked at Donald Trump and thought, “Finally, someone who understands subtlety.”

Hulk Hogan’s diagnosis was equally uncomplicated. Terry Bollea helped transform professional wrestling into mainstream entertainment, headlined WrestleMania and convinced an entire generation of children that vitamins could make their skin orange. Whatever remained of that legacy changed on July 18, 2024, when Hogan walked onto the Republican National Convention stage, called Trump his hero and tore off his shirt to reveal a Trump-Vance shirt underneath.

That was not an endorsement. It was a political gender reveal. The shirt came off, the MAGA appeared and nobody in the delivery room was surprised.

Cause of MAGA: Blunt-force trauma from repeatedly striking himself with a folding chair labeled “critical thinking.”
Time of MAGA: July 18, 2024.

Hulk Hogan will now be remembered as the man who saw American democracy dangling unconscious from the ropes and decided to give Trump the tag.

The Hollywood Wing

Academy Award-winning actor Jon Voight could have been remembered for Midnight Cowboy, Deliverance and his Oscar-winning performance in Coming Home. He could also have been remembered as Angelina Jolie’s father, which appears to be the role she has spent most of her adult life trying to recast.

On March 9, 2016, Voight endorsed Donald Trump, calling him “funny, playful and colorful—but most of all, honest.” Honest. He examined a man who had spent decades putting his name on steaks, casinos, buildings and products made by other people and somehow diagnosed him with honesty.

Voight’s condition only deteriorated. He later called Trump the greatest president since Abraham Lincoln, supported his false claims following the 2020 election and eventually accepted a position as one of Trump’s “special ambassadors” to Hollywood.

Cause of MAGA: An untreated Lincoln comparison that spread directly to the brain.
Time of MAGA: March 9, 2016.

Jon Voight will now be remembered as the man from Coming Home who never politically came home.

Kelsey Grammer presents another baffling case. He spent decades playing Dr. Frasier Crane, one of television’s most famous psychiatrists, and built an enormously successful career portraying a highly educated man capable of identifying emotional dysfunction. Unfortunately, none of that training appears to have transferred.

During a December 2023 BBC interview, Grammer was asked whether he still supported Trump. “I am,” he answered, before adding, “That’s about all. Let that be the end of it.” Sir, you played a psychiatrist for 20 years. Surely you understand that refusing to discuss the problem does not mean the problem has gone away.

Grammer had shown symptoms during the 2016 election, but his 2023 confirmation established that the MAGA had survived every scandal, two impeachments, January 6 and Trump’s attempt to overturn an election.

Cause of MAGA: Persistent Frasier Crane cosplay without access to Frasier Crane’s judgment.
Time of confirmed chronic MAGA: December 5, 2023.

Kelsey Grammer will now be remembered as the psychiatrist who could diagnose everyone except himself.

Tough Guys Who Learned Nothing From Their Own Movies

Dennis Quaid could have been remembered for The Right Stuff, The Parent Trap, The Rookie and four decades of playing the charming American man who probably owns a golden retriever. Then, on October 12, 2024, he spoke at Trump’s campaign rally in Coachella, California.

Quaid told the crowd that it was time to “pick a side” and called Trump his favorite president of the 21st century. There have only been four presidents in the 21st century, and Quaid still selected the one facing criminal charges. That is like entering a restaurant offering steak, chicken, pasta and a flaming bag of human hair, then announcing that the chef really outdid himself with the hair.

Cause of MAGA: Acute Reagan-role contamination after portraying Ronald Reagan in a movie.
Time of MAGA: October 12, 2024.

Dennis Quaid will now be remembered as the father from The Parent Trap who examined both choices and somehow selected the worse parent.

Mel Gibson arrived with several preexisting conditions, but we still need to enter his official diagnosis into the record. Gibson could have been remembered for Lethal Weapon, Braveheart and winning an Academy Award for directing a movie about a man fighting authoritarian rule.

On October 24, 2024, TMZ asked Gibson whether he planned to vote for Trump. Gibson indicated that Trump was a “pretty good guess” and attacked Kamala Harris by saying she had “the IQ of a fence post.” Mel Gibson insulting someone else’s judgment is like the captain of the Titanic reviewing your parallel parking.

Trump later appointed Gibson as another “special ambassador” to Hollywood, making the test results conclusive.

Cause of MAGA: Toxic levels of rage combined with complete immunity to self-awareness.
Time of MAGA: October 24, 2024.

Mel Gibson will now be remembered as the man who screamed “Freedom!” in Braveheart and then supported the politician promising to use the government for personal revenge.

Then there is Sylvester Stallone, who wrote and starred in Rocky, created one of America’s most enduring underdog stories and turned a staircase in Philadelphia into mandatory gym equipment. On November 14, 2024, Stallone introduced Trump at an America First Policy Institute gala, called him a “mythical character” and said he was in awe of him.

Then came the catastrophic symptom: Stallone compared Donald Trump to George Washington, calling Trump the “second George Washington.” George Washington voluntarily surrendered power. Donald Trump sent a mob toward Congress because Mike Pence refused to help him keep it. Those are not the same character; they are not even the same genre.

Cause of MAGA: Repeated blows to the head followed by a catastrophic American-history deficiency.
Time of MAGA: November 14, 2024.

Sylvester Stallone will now be remembered as Rocky Balboa—the fictional boxer who could withstand unlimited punches—and the real man who got knocked out by a red baseball cap.

Small-Town Grievance Syndrome

Country singer Jason Aldean survived the 2017 mass shooting at the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas. He could have been remembered for that, along with his long string of country hits and multiple Academy of Country Music Awards.

Instead, on November 5, 2024, Aldean announced that he had proudly voted for Trump and encouraged his followers to do the same. The symptoms had appeared earlier. After the 2024 assassination attempt, Aldean dedicated “Try That in a Small Town” to his “friend” Donald Trump. By Election Day, however, the diagnosis was clinically undeniable.

Cause of MAGA: Small-town grievance syndrome complicated by millionaire tax-bracket inflammation.
Time of MAGA: November 5, 2024.

Jason Aldean will now be remembered as a man who survived an actual mass shooting and still decided the greatest threat facing America was somebody taking a knee.

Kanye’s Political Factory Reset

Kanye West could have been remembered as one of the most influential musical artists of his generation. He produced era-defining albums, won 24 Grammy Awards and changed the sound of hip-hop. Before the condition took hold, he was also the man who stood on national television after Hurricane Katrina and declared that George Bush did not care about Black people.

Then, on November 17, 2016, Kanye stopped a concert in San Jose and announced that, although he had not voted, he would have voted for Donald Trump. In other words: “I did not perform the civic act, but I would like everyone to know how badly I would have performed it.”

The infection progressed. Kanye met Trump at Trump Tower, wore the red MAGA hat and eventually delivered an Oval Office monologue so confusing that Trump briefly appeared to be the most stable person in the room.

Cause of MAGA: A severe, untreated craving for attention, complicated by the belief that every thought required an audience.
Time of MAGA: November 17, 2016.

Kanye will now be remembered as a musical genius who looked at Donald Trump and decided the relationship needed two narcissists.

Patient Zero Enters the Sports Ward

Mike Tyson became the youngest heavyweight champion in history in 1986, when he was only 20 years old. He should have been remembered as one of the most terrifying boxers ever to enter a ring.

On October 27, 2015, however, Tyson publicly said that Donald Trump should be president. He argued that America should try something new and run the country like a business. This was before Trump secured the Republican nomination, before the Access Hollywood tape and before January 6. Tyson was not swept away in a late outbreak; he was patient zero.

Cause of MAGA: An inability to distinguish between running a casino into bankruptcy and running the federal government.
Time of MAGA: October 27, 2015.

Mike Tyson will now be remembered as the heavyweight champion who bit Evander Holyfield’s ear but somehow found Donald Trump completely reasonable.

Danica Patrick’s case is especially frustrating because she was a genuine trailblazer. She became the first—and remains the only—woman to win an IndyCar Series race, broke barriers in a male-dominated sport and inspired girls who wanted to race.

In October 2024, Patrick announced that she would vote for the first time in her life and that her first presidential vote would go to Donald Trump. Imagine waiting until age 42 to participate in democracy and using your historic first ballot to vote against women’s bodily autonomy. That is not voter engagement; it is a 42-year loading screen followed by a system error.

Cause of MAGA: Making a hard right turn without checking whether democracy was in the other lane.
Time of MAGA: October 23, 2024.

Danica Patrick will now be remembered as the woman who spent her career breaking barriers and then voted for the people trying to rebuild them.

Brett Favre and the Welfare-State Audacity

Brett Favre could have been remembered as a Green Bay Packers legend, a Super Bowl champion and the first NFL player to win three consecutive Most Valuable Player awards. Then, on October 30, 2024, he appeared at Trump’s campaign rally in Green Bay and urged Wisconsin voters to send Trump back to the White House.

Favre told the crowd that the United States had won with Trump before. That declaration was especially awkward because Favre was already entangled in one of the largest public-welfare scandals in Mississippi history. He has denied wrongdoing and has not been criminally charged, but civil litigation and text messages established that millions in welfare money were redirected toward projects that included a volleyball facility at his alma mater.

Nothing says “America First” quite like appearing beside a billionaire while lawyers argue over money intended for some of America’s poorest families.

Cause of MAGA: Complications from confusing public assistance with a private fundraising opportunity.
Time of MAGA: October 30, 2024.

Brett Favre will now be remembered as the quarterback who spent his career avoiding interceptions and his retirement failing to avoid subpoenas.

The Wrestler Who Helped Resurrect Trump

Mark Calaway, better known as The Undertaker, spent more than 30 years portraying a supernatural figure who returned from the dead whenever WWE needed ratings. He became one of the greatest and most recognizable professional wrestlers of all time.

On October 18, 2024, The Undertaker appeared in a pro-Trump election video with fellow wrestler Kane. Standing beside Trump, they instructed voters to “choose wisely.” Apparently, the wisdom accumulated during three decades of burying people did not extend to keeping Trump’s political career in the ground.

Cause of MAGA: Occupational confusion after spending too many years pretending the dead should return to positions of power.
Time of MAGA: October 18, 2024.

The Undertaker will now be remembered as a man who built an entire career around burying people—and then helped dig up Donald Trump’s political career.

The Patient Who Escaped—and Climbed Back Into the Coffin

Caitlyn Jenner’s case may be the most bewildering on this list. Jenner won the Olympic decathlon gold medal in 1976 and later became one of the most famous transgender women in the world. Her story could have been one of athletic achievement, reinvention and barrier-breaking visibility.

Jenner said she voted for Trump in 2016. Then, after his administration repeatedly attacked transgender rights, she publicly withdrew her support in 2018 and admitted, “I was wrong.” Doctors detected brain activity. The patient sat up, recognized the danger and appeared to be recovering.

Then, in April 2024, Jenner endorsed Trump again. Since returning to power, Trump has pursued policies explicitly rejecting transgender identity across the federal government. In 2026, Jenner revealed that her renewed passport had been marked male under the administration’s rules. She asked Trump for help—and continued supporting him.

This goes beyond voting against your own interests. It is helping someone build the cage, crawling inside, locking the door and then calling him to complain that the cage is uncomfortable.

Cause of MAGA: Repeated self-inflicted policy injuries with total resistance to pattern recognition.
Original Time of MAGA: November 2016.
Briefly revived: October 2018.
Official MAGA relapse: April 29, 2024.

Caitlyn Jenner will now be remembered as a barrier-breaking transgender Olympian who continued supporting the man removing protections for transgender Americans.

The Final Patient

Nicki Minaj could have been remembered as one of the most successful and influential female rappers in history. She shattered sales and chart records, built an enormous global fanbase and opened doors for a generation of women in hip-hop. She also cultivated an enormous LGBTQ following and once condemned Trump’s family-separation policy, writing about arriving in America as an undocumented five-year-old and imagining how terrified those separated children must have been.

There were warning signs later, but the definitive event occurred on December 21, 2025, when Nicki appeared at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest. She praised Trump and JD Vance as role models, described Trump as “handsome” and “dashing,” repeated his insulting nickname for Gavin Newsom and told the audience that it was acceptable to change their minds.

It certainly is acceptable to change your mind. But moving from “tearing immigrant children away from their parents is terrifying” to praising the man responsible as “handsome” and “dashing” is less a political evolution than a complete factory reset.

On January 28, 2026, Nicki appeared beside Trump at a government event and publicly declared herself his “number one fan.” Not a reluctant supporter. Not someone selecting what she considered the lesser evil. Not a voter who agreed with him on one or two policies. His number-one fan.

Trump responded by praising her political support and commenting on her attractiveness, because apparently the United States government is now a nightclub meet-and-greet.

Cause of MAGA: Advanced contrarianism complicated by prolonged exposure to people applauding every sentence.
Time of MAGA: December 21, 2025.
Official pronouncement: January 28, 2026.

Nicki Minaj will now be remembered as a groundbreaking female rapper who once condemned Trump for terrifying immigrant children—and later stood beside him as his self-declared number-one fan.

Fame Does Not Erase the Choice

That is what makes this list funny, but also genuinely depressing. These people possessed extraordinary talent. Some broke racial or gender barriers. Some created art about freedom, underdogs and resistance to authority. Some became enormously wealthy because millions of ordinary people bought their albums, watched their movies, attended their concerts and cheered for their teams.

They then used that fame to normalize and promote a political movement built around Donald Trump. Supporting him does not magically erase everything they accomplished beforehand. Nobody has to remove Rocky, Frasier, The Parent Trap or Braveheart from history, pretend Nicki Minaj never made influential music or deny Mike Tyson’s championships.

But public support becomes part of a public legacy. You cannot spend years using your fame to promote a political movement and then demand that history remember only the albums, touchdowns and Academy Awards. Choices made from a massive public platform deserve to be recorded alongside the achievements that created that platform.

They could have been remembered for changing music, winning championships or breaking barriers. Instead, their obituaries will require at least one deeply exhausting paragraph beginning, “In later years, however…”

Fame gave these people a platform. MAGA showed us what they chose to do with it. Their former achievements remain intact, but their legacies have been permanently altered.

Time of MAGA: noted for the record.

Which celebrity belongs in the next round—and what exact public moment should be recorded as their official Time of MAGA?

Support This Work

The Grizzly Report is for people who are tired of being manipulated by headlines, political theater and confidently repeated lies. I do the digging, verify the claims and connect the pieces so you can understand what is happening, why it matters and what the people in power would prefer you never examine too closely.

If you regularly read this work and believe independent reporting like this needs to survive, please become a paid subscriber today. Reading is valuable, but paid subscriptions are what give me the time and independence to investigate these stories without answering to political parties, corporate sponsors or algorithms. If you have been considering upgrading, this is the moment when your decision can make a real difference.

Subscribe now

Not ready for a paid subscription? You can still help this reporting reach thousands of people who may never encounter it otherwise. Share this article with one person who needs the receipts, post it to your social media, or buy me a coffee to support the research behind the next investigation. Independent media does not have a billion-dollar distribution system; it has readers willing to carry important work into rooms the algorithm will not.

To my Grizzlies who already subscribe, share this work and continue showing up: you are not supporting “an influencer.” You are funding independent reporting, public education and a community committed to defending democracy with facts instead of surrendering to fear. I deeply appreciate every one of you. 💙🐻

Video Version:

MAGA was told that experts are the enemy, education is indoctrination, foreigners are the problem and America can bully the entire world without suffering consequences. They voted for that fantasy. Now the United States is helping rescue Japan’s currency, the Treasury is buying back American debt to stabilize the bond market, investors are demanding higher interest rates to lend us money and countries around the world are developing ways to trade without the dollar.

This is what happens when a political movement turns ignorance into authenticity and isolation into patriotism. Eventually, the slogans collide with mathematics. The people who believed “America First” meant America could act alone are discovering that our prosperity depends heavily on other countries buying our debt, using our currency and trusting our government.

To be clear, this is not an attack on Americans who never attended college. A degree is not the same thing as intelligence, and some of the smartest people in this country have never set foot on a university campus. The problem is a political culture that celebrates refusing to learn, dismisses expertise as weakness and trains people to treat complicated questions as liberal tricks.

An informed voter hears “America First” and asks what happens if America abandons its allies, disrupts global trade, starts a war in the region supplying much of the world’s energy and uses the dollar to threaten every country that disobeys us. MAGA voters were encouraged to skip those questions and focus on who Trump promised to punish. Now the consequences are reaching American mortgages, car payments, credit cards, grocery bills and tax dollars.

Why America Had to Rescue Japan’s Currency

At the end of July, the United States joined Japan in buying large amounts of Japan’s currency, called the yen. Buying a currency creates demand for it, which can slow its decline or push its value higher. According to the Council on Foreign Relations, the United States sold euros from its emergency reserves and used the proceeds to buy yen—the first American intervention to strengthen Japan’s currency in more than twenty years.

This was not simply an act of friendship. Japan’s financial emergency was getting dangerously close to becoming America’s financial emergency.

Japan produces very little oil and gas of its own. Its government says the country depends on the Middle East for more than 90% of its crude oil, leaving it especially vulnerable to a war that damages refineries and disrupts shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. When Trump chose to begin a war with Iran, he was not striking an isolated enemy; he was interfering with an energy system that powers economies around the world.

Japan’s problem became even worse as the yen lost value. Imagine that one American dollar once cost 100 yen but now costs 160 yen. Japan must surrender far more of its own money to purchase the same number of dollars.

Because most oil is still priced in dollars, Japan must exchange its weakened yen for expensive dollars before using those dollars to buy increasingly expensive oil. The country was effectively punched twice: the war raised the cost of the fuel, and the weakening yen raised the cost of the currency required to purchase it. By July, the prices paid by Japanese producers were 7.2% higher than they had been one year earlier, increasing costs before their products ever reached consumers.

Japan’s Debt Trap Is Also America’s Problem

Expensive energy is only part of Japan’s financial danger. Its government is carrying approximately 1.3 quadrillion yen in debt—roughly $9 trillion, depending on the exchange rate. That is more than twice the value of everything Japan’s economy produces in an entire year.

Imagine a family earning $100,000 annually while owing more than $230,000. The family is not automatically bankrupt, especially if it has dependable income and valuable property, but the interest rate on that debt matters enormously. If those loans become more expensive, debt payments can begin consuming money needed for everything else.

For decades, Japan managed its enormous debt because interest rates remained near zero. The government could borrow tremendous amounts without paying very much for the privilege. That era is ending.

On August 21, Japan’s ten-year government-bond rate reached 2.945%, its highest level in approximately thirty years. Japan is considering using an assumed interest rate of 3.8% when calculating next year’s debt costs, up from 3% this year. Its annual debt-service costs—which include interest and bonds coming due—are expected to increase from 31.3 trillion yen in 2026 to more than 40 trillion yen by 2029, potentially consuming nearly 30% of the government’s entire budget.

The danger becomes easier to understand when we shrink the numbers. If someone borrows $100 at 1% interest, the yearly interest is approximately one dollar. At 4%, it becomes four dollars. That three-dollar difference seems small until it is applied to trillions of dollars, at which point a modest change in interest rates creates tens of billions of dollars in additional costs.

Japan Holds a Trillion-Dollar Lever Over America

When the United States spends more than it collects, it borrows the difference by selling Treasury bonds. A Treasury bond is an IOU: investors give the government money today, and the government promises to pay interest before returning the original amount. American banks, pension funds, investment firms, the Federal Reserve and foreign governments all purchase these bonds.

Foreign investors do not own most American debt, but they own enough to affect the market. Foreign accounts hold approximately $9.5 trillion in Treasury securities, representing about 30% of the federal debt held by the public. Japan alone owns approximately $1.14 trillion, making it the largest foreign holder of American government debt.

That gave Washington a powerful reason to defend the yen. Japan needed dollars to strengthen its currency, and one way to obtain those dollars was to sell some of its American Treasury bonds. Japan has used Treasury sales during previous currency interventions.

A large sale would place even more American bonds into a market already struggling to attract buyers. When supply rises faster than demand, bond prices fall. In the bond market, lower prices produce higher yields, forcing the United States to offer investors a better return to convince them to keep lending us money.

Consider an older $100 bond paying three dollars per year. If the government begins selling new $100 bonds paying five dollars, few investors will pay the full $100 for the older bond. Its owner may have to lower the price to approximately $60, at which point the three-dollar payment equals a 5% return on the reduced price.

That is why bond prices and yields move in opposite directions. When bond prices fall, yields rise. When Treasury yields rise, borrowing becomes more expensive for the government, businesses and ordinary Americans.

The intervention was therefore an act of self-protection. Strengthening the yen could reduce Japan’s need to sell American bonds and help prevent an even larger increase in Treasury rates. Washington was rescuing Japan because Japan had a trillion-dollar lever hanging over the American bond market.

“America First” Meets the Real World

This is the part MAGA’s isolationist politics refuses to acknowledge: the global economy is connected. America cannot set fire to another country’s neighborhood, disrupt global shipping, insult its allies and then build a wall tall enough to keep the consequences outside. Our power depends on relationships whether MAGA voters understand those relationships or not.

For decades, countries bought American debt because they trusted the United States to repay it. Treasury bonds were considered one of the safest and easiest places in the world to store money, allowing our government to borrow extraordinary amounts at relatively low rates. Trust—not aggression—was America’s most valuable financial advantage.

Trust, however, is not permanent. Investors now see more than $40 trillion in federal debt, enormous yearly deficits, reduced government revenue from tax cuts, persistent inflation, domestic political instability and an open-ended war with Iran. They still expect America to repay its obligations, but they increasingly want more compensation for accepting the risk.

On August 20, the ten-year Treasury yield reached approximately 4.70%. The thirty-year yield reached roughly 5.25% after recently touching 5.34%, its highest level in nineteen years. For comparison, the ten-year yield remained below 3% for much of the decade following the 2008 financial crash and fell below 1% during the pandemic.

Investors now want close to 5% to hold some long-term American bonds. That does not mean they expect the United States to collapse tomorrow. It means lending to our government no longer appears as cheap, calm or nearly risk-free as it once did.

The Treasury’s Multibillion-Dollar Band-Aid

As bond rates climbed, the Treasury Department offered to buy at least $4 billion in older, long-term bonds during each buyback operation. The goal was to remove some harder-to-sell bonds from the market, make the remaining bonds easier to trade and prevent their prices from falling as quickly. It was essentially an effort to clear older inventory from an overcrowded market.

The government was not eliminating the underlying debt or discovering free money. It was reorganizing one portion of its enormous pile of IOUs while continuing to borrow elsewhere. Four billion dollars sounds substantial, but it is tiny inside a Treasury market worth more than $32 trillion.

The intervention calmed the market briefly before rates began climbing again. One Wall Street analyst described the buyback as a Band-Aid because it did nothing to resolve the problems making investors nervous: enormous deficits, inflation, uncertainty and more than $40 trillion in federal debt.

America now spends approximately $1.1 trillion every year just paying interest on money it has already borrowed. Interest has become the second-largest item in the federal budget, behind only Social Security. We spend more servicing old debt than we spend on the Pentagon, and during the first ten months of this budget year, interest costs even surpassed Medicare spending.

Every dollar devoted to interest is unavailable for schools, health care, infrastructure, disaster relief or programs that directly improve Americans’ lives. The danger grows as older debt comes due and must be replaced with new bonds carrying higher rates. A sustained increase of only two-tenths of one percentage point in the ten-year Treasury yield could add an estimated $702 billion to federal interest costs over ten years.

MAGA’s War Damaged the Global Energy System

Trump entered this war while the American financial system was already under enormous pressure. Nearly six months later, his administration has not produced a lasting settlement. The Strait of Hormuz remains disrupted, refineries remain damaged, fuel supplies are strained and Trump is threatening even harsher sanctions because military force failed to compel Iran to surrender.

This outcome was perfectly fucking predictable.

More than 20% of the Middle East’s oil-refining capacity was knocked offline. When combined with disruptions caused by the war in Ukraine, nearly 9% of the world’s refining capacity was offline at one point. Those shutdowns affect far more than the amount of crude oil coming out of the ground.

A refinery turns crude oil into gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, heating fuel, plastics and other usable products. Refinery complexes also contain storage tanks, pipelines and export facilities needed to move oil and finished fuel through the global economy. The war damaged equipment at nearly every stage of that process.

This explains how crude oil could fall from its wartime peak of approximately $118 per barrel to around $90 while gasoline and diesel remained painfully expensive. The raw ingredient became cheaper, but part of the machinery required to transform it into usable fuel was still broken. It is like having plenty of wheat while half the bakeries are closed: wheat may cost less, but bread remains expensive because there are not enough working ovens.

European diesel prices have risen more than 70% since the war began, while American gasoline prices have increased by approximately 60%. American diesel supplies are at their lowest seasonal level in thirty years. Even if the fighting ended tomorrow, replacing specialized equipment and repairing damaged refineries could take months or years.

An informed population would have demanded answers about those risks before the bombing began. MAGA was encouraged to laugh at the experts, trust Trump’s instincts and believe military domination was a substitute for planning. The movement’s voters were more interested in watching the “right” foreigners suffer than in asking how a Middle Eastern war would affect their own bank accounts.

How MAGA’s War Reaches Your Checking Account

Higher energy costs move through the entire economy. A farmer pays more to operate a tractor, the trucking company pays more to transport the farmer’s food and the grocery store pays more for electricity and deliveries. The customer ultimately absorbs every increase at the register.

The same pattern raises the cost of medicine, clothing, fertilizer, cleaning supplies, plastic products and airline tickets. As inflation rises, the Federal Reserve becomes reluctant to lower interest rates because cheaper borrowing could stimulate demand and push prices even higher. Treasury rates remain elevated, and banks charge more for mortgages, automobiles, credit cards and business loans.

Consider a family purchasing a home with a $300,000 mortgage. At 6% interest, the principal-and-interest payment is approximately $1,799 per month. At 7%, it increases to roughly $1,996—a difference of almost $200 every month and more than $70,000 over thirty years.

If that family finances a $40,000 vehicle for five years, the payment is approximately $773 per month at 6%. At 9%, it rises to roughly $830. If the family also carries a $10,000 credit-card balance, an increase from 20% to 24% adds approximately $400 in yearly interest if the balance remains unchanged.

The family is now paying hundreds of additional dollars every month without receiving a better house, a nicer vehicle or one additional bag of groceries. It is paying more because money itself became more expensive. Multiply that experience across millions of households and businesses, and the result is weaker spending, slower growth, fewer jobs and an even less affordable housing market.

That is how Trump’s war reaches an American checking account.

The Petrodollar Was Built on Trust

Most global oil has traditionally been priced and paid for in American dollars. Countries need dollars to purchase energy, and oil-producing nations frequently invest the dollars they receive in American banks and Treasury bonds. This creates steady demand for our currency and helps the federal government borrow money more cheaply.

The dollar did not become dominant because America shouted the loudest or threatened the most countries. It became dominant because the United States had an enormous economy, deep financial markets, a mostly dependable legal system and government bonds the world trusted. Once most countries used the same system, continuing to use it was easier than building a replacement.

American administrations eventually began using access to that system as a weapon. Because international dollar payments frequently pass through American banks, the United States can block transactions, freeze assets and punish governments or businesses that refuse to comply with its demands. America used that power repeatedly because it worked.

Every time we used it, however, we gave the target another reason to build an escape hatch. China now pays for much of its sanctioned Iranian oil in yuan. Iran and Russia conduct some trade in their own currencies, Indian refiners have paid for Iranian oil in yuan, India is promoting more trade in rupees and central banks are accumulating more gold.

The dollar remains the dominant global currency. At the end of 2025, it represented 56.77% of reported global currency reserves, compared with approximately 20% for the euro and less than 2% for China’s yuan. The dollar was also involved in roughly 89% of foreign-exchange transactions.

However, the dollar’s share of reported global reserves was approximately 72% in 2001. The dollar is not facing sudden death. It is experiencing a long, slow leak—and Trump is giving other countries powerful reasons to make that leak worse.

What MAGA’s Politics Was Designed to Hide

China purchases more than 80% of Iran’s exported oil, yet Trump is threatening China and every other country that continues doing business with Tehran. China has already spent years developing payment systems that do not depend entirely on American banks. The harder America attempts to control China and Iran through the dollar, the more valuable those alternative systems become.

Trump started a war against a country that has survived decades of sanctions and built networks for moving oil and money beyond American control. The war did not produce the easy victory MAGA was promised. It damaged the energy system, increased fuel prices, raised the cost of American debt, forced emergency action in Japan and gave foreign governments another reason to prepare for a world that needs fewer dollars.

This is where racism, hatred and anti-intellectualism become more than cultural problems. They become economic weapons used against the people who embrace them. Racism keeps voters furious with their neighbors, isolationism keeps them ignorant of America’s dependence on the world and hostility toward education stops them from recognizing the con.

MAGA teaches struggling Americans to blame immigrants while ignoring the corporations controlling their wages. It teaches them to fear Muslims while refusing to explain what another Middle Eastern war will do to energy prices. It tells them that universities, scientists, economists and career experts are the enemy while billionaires receive tax cuts and ordinary families pay more for housing, groceries and debt.

The cruelty is not separate from the economic incompetence. It is how the incompetence is sold. If voters remain angry enough at the people Trump tells them to hate, they may never stop to ask who is actually emptying their bank accounts.

MAGA Voted for This

Trump and MAGA did not create America’s entire debt problem. Republican and Democratic administrations accumulated it over decades, and both parties treated American banks and the dollar as weapons they could use without consequences. Both assumed that the rest of the world would always need our financial system more than we needed its trust.

Trump nevertheless chose to begin this war while every part of that system was already under pressure. America has crossed $40 trillion in debt, the Treasury is intervening in bond and currency markets, the war is nowhere near a durable resolution and governments around the world are building financial escape routes around American power.

The global economy is not a collection of separate boxes. Trump’s war damages a refinery in the Middle East. Japan pays more for fuel, its currency falls and its government may need to sell American bonds. Treasury yields rise, American mortgages and credit cards become more expensive, the government spends more tax revenue on interest and other countries develop ways to trade without the dollar.

Every link pulls on the next one.

MAGA voted for politicians who mocked education, rejected expertise, encouraged hatred and treated international cooperation as surrender. Its voters believed “America First” meant America could act alone without paying a price. In the financial world, America alone means fewer allies, fewer customers, fewer buyers for our debt and fewer countries that need our currency.

We are not watching the dollar disappear tomorrow. We are watching the United States make the dollar less necessary—one war, one sanction and one trillion dollars of debt at a time.

That is what MAGA voted for. Now every American may be forced to pay for it.

Support This Work

The Grizzly Report is for people who are tired of being manipulated by headlines, political theater and confidently repeated lies. I do the digging, verify the claims and connect the pieces so you can understand what is happening, why it matters and what the people in power would prefer you never examine too closely.

If you regularly read this work and believe independent reporting like this needs to survive, please become a paid subscriber today. Reading is valuable, but paid subscriptions are what give me the time and independence to investigate these stories without answering to political parties, corporate sponsors or algorithms. If you have been considering upgrading, this is the moment when your decision can make a real difference.

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Not ready for a paid subscription? You can still help this reporting reach thousands of people who may never encounter it otherwise. Share this article with one person who needs the receipts, post it to your social media, or buy me a coffee to support the research behind the next investigation. Independent media does not have a billion-dollar distribution system; it has readers willing to carry important work into rooms the algorithm will not.

To my Grizzlies who already subscribe, share this work and continue showing up: you are not supporting “an influencer.” You are funding independent reporting, public education and a community committed to defending democracy with facts instead of surrendering to fear. I deeply appreciate every one of you. 💙🐻

Video Version:

Why do we need political pundits to explain something that is painfully obvious? Americans are not suddenly becoming Democrats. They are not all waking up as socialists, and millions of people are not abandoning the Republican Party because someone handed them a book about Marxism.

People are finally looking at what the government does with their money—and what it refuses to do for them.

Americans Have Seen the Menu

Imagine the election as a restaurant menu. One side is offering Medicare for All, universal childcare, affordable housing, higher wages, stronger unions, an end to endless foreign wars and a government that prioritizes the people paying for it. It also includes abolishing ICE, rejecting corporate control over elections, ending unconditional military assistance for Israel and preventing billionaires from purchasing public policy.

The other side is offering more billionaire tax breaks, more corporate deregulation, more religious control over private life, more attacks on immigrants, more weapons contracts, more secrecy and less accountability. It includes pardons for political allies, wars launched without meaningful congressional authorization and a government increasingly operated for the benefit of wealthy donors and politically connected corporations.

How is that even a choice?

That question explains the current political moment better than another panel of highly paid pundits trying to determine whether America has suddenly “moved left.” This is not primarily an ideological conversion. It is a growing recognition that the American government can always find money for war, weapons and billionaires but suddenly becomes fiscally responsible when ordinary people ask for healthcare, housing or childcare.

What Happened in Florida

On August 18, Angie Nixon won Florida’s Democratic primary for the United States Senate. Nixon is a Florida state representative, former union organizer, working mother and member of the Democratic Socialists of America, although DSA did not formally endorse her campaign.

Her opponent was Alex Vindman, the former National Security Council official who became nationally famous after testifying during Donald Trump’s first impeachment. Vindman entered the race with national name recognition, establishment support and approximately $16.3 million. Nixon raised less than $1 million.

She did not barely survive that financial disadvantage. Nixon won approximately 56% of the vote to Vindman’s 44%, receiving roughly 690,000 votes compared with approximately 544,000 for Vindman. She beat a nationally famous candidate with more than sixteen times her resources by twelve percentage points.

Did hundreds of thousands of Florida Democrats wake up Tuesday morning, study socialist theory and decide to overthrow capitalism before dinner? Of course not. They looked at what each candidate was offering.

Vindman’s political identity was built around his national-security résumé and his history of opposing Trump. Nixon’s campaign was built around Medicare for All, universal childcare, affordable housing, fully funded public education, a $25 minimum wage, taxing billionaires and ending American military assistance for Israel.

One candidate offered another campaign about Trump. The other offered to help people pay their fucking bills.

That does not mean Nixon will automatically win in November. Florida remains a difficult state for any Democrat, and Republican Ashley Moody is still favored in the general election. But that is a different question from what happened in this primary.

The question Democratic voters answered was whether money, fame and establishment support should defeat a clear working-class agenda. Sixteen million dollars lost.

This Is Not One Isolated Election

The Democratic Socialists of America’s election tracker currently lists 63 victories, 54 losses and 55 candidates still running across 172 tracked races. Those victories include local and state elections, so this does not mean 63 democratic socialists are suddenly heading to Congress. It does mean the movement has developed a real electoral operation with candidates winning across more than a dozen states.

At the congressional level, CBS News found that approximately two-thirds of House candidates endorsed by DSA or Justice Democrats won their primaries. Three defeated sitting members of Congress, five won nominations for open seats and two advanced through California’s top-two system. Between seven and nine are expected to reach Congress because most are running in heavily Democratic districts.

Melat Kiros, a 29-year-old democratic socialist, defeated Colorado Congresswoman Diana DeGette, who had been in office for nearly 30 years. Donavan McKinney defeated incumbent Congressman Shri Thanedar in Michigan. Chris Rabb won in Pennsylvania, while Claire Valdez and Darializa Avila Chevalier won in New York.

In New York’s state legislative primaries, eight of the ten DSA-backed candidates won. Those candidates faced approximately $2.9 million in super PAC spending intended to stop them, but the money did not produce the outcome their opponents expected.

Then there is Abdul El-Sayed, who won Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary. El-Sayed is not a member of DSA and says he is not a socialist. That distinction matters because it proves the label is not what connects these candidates.

The offer connects them.

El-Sayed’s campaign message is “Money out of politics. Money in your pockets. Medicare for All.” He supports universal healthcare, affordable housing, taxing billionaire wealth, stronger protections for workers and removing corporate money from elections. He has also opposed continued military assistance for Israel.

Different candidate. Different state. Different label. Same menu.

This Is Bigger Than Political Party

Donald Trump’s endorsement has also failed in a growing number of Republican primaries. One current count lists 12 Trump-endorsed candidates who have lost this cycle, including nine losses within three weeks. Those defeats include candidates for Congress, governor and state office.

That does not mean Republican voters have become democratic socialists, and we should not manipulate the numbers to pretend Trump has completely lost control of his party. His endorsement success rate remains approximately 96%, although that total includes many incumbents and candidates who faced little or no serious competition.

What the losses demonstrate is that endorsements, party leadership, billionaire funding and national fame do not always overpower voters when they are presented with a real choice. The public is becoming less loyal to institutions and more interested in what candidates intend to do.

That is why this story cannot be reduced to Democrats versus Republicans. Many establishment Democrats do not like democratic socialists either. Corporate donors, party leaders and outside organizations have spent millions trying to prevent them from winning Democratic primaries.

DSA is not a separate political party. It is a membership organization that endorses candidates, organizes volunteers and attempts to build political power. Because the United States operates through a rigid two-party system, democratic-socialist candidates who want a realistic path to office usually have to run on the Democratic ballot.

That does not make the Democratic establishment responsible for their victories. In several of these races, democratic socialists won by defeating the candidates that establishment Democrats preferred.

Why Billionaires Need You Afraid

For most of the past 75 years, America’s political and corporate establishment has trained people to react to words like “socialism,” “communism” and “Marxism” as if someone pulled a fire alarm. They rarely want to define those words or compare individual policies. They need the public to panic before examining what is actually being proposed.

Look at the people most committed to keeping that fear alive. They are billionaires, billionaire-funded politicians, billionaire-owned media companies, corporate lobbyists, defense contractors and professional political mouthpieces whose careers depend on preserving the existing system.

Of course they need Americans terrified of democratic socialism. They have the most to lose if people stop reacting to the label and start examining the menu.

People might notice that America already practices socialism. We socialize the risks and privatize the profits.

Taxpayers fund the research, but corporations own the patents. Taxpayers rescue the banks, but executives keep their bonuses. Taxpayers build the infrastructure, while billionaires collect the revenue.

Taxpayers also fund the weapons, but defense contractors collect the profit. After handing billions of public dollars to private corporations, the same government tells working families that universal healthcare would be an irresponsible government handout.

Apparently, public money only becomes socialism when the public receives something from it.

Mamdani Gave People an Example

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has given Americans a visible example of what democratic-socialist government can look like in practice. He won by promising to make life more affordable for ordinary New Yorkers, and his administration has begun turning portions of that platform into policy.

New York City secured a $1.2 billion partnership with the state to begin building universal childcare. The city is launching 2,000 free childcare seats for two-year-olds this fall, with plans for 12,000 seats next year and universal coverage within four years. More than 5,700 families applied for the first 2,000 seats.

The Mamdani administration has also announced that approximately 22,000 lower-income families already receiving childcare assistance will have their remaining out-of-pocket costs eliminated. That is not an abstract debate about ideology. It is money that families will no longer have to subtract from their grocery, housing and utility budgets every month.

The city’s new budget includes $1,000 college savings accounts for every public-school kindergartner, expanded discounted transit and additional funding for housing vouchers. It also includes investments in parks, libraries, cultural institutions and the City University of New York.

According to the administration’s first-100-days report, the city secured more than $30 million in settlements from bad landlords, repaired more than 6,000 apartments and recovered nearly $100,000 a day for workers and small businesses exploited by large corporations and delivery apps.

This does not mean Mamdani has created a socialist paradise. Some of his largest promises remain unfinished, including the planned public grocery stores, the first of which is not expected to open until 2027. Other policies still require funding, negotiations, state cooperation and competent implementation.

The importance of Mamdani is not that every policy has already succeeded. The importance is that New Yorkers can see the difference between a politician who says government cannot help them and one who begins looking for ways to make it help them.

That is what frightens the establishment. People might experience government making their lives easier and begin demanding the same thing elsewhere.

“Both Sides Are the Same” Was Political Anesthesia

For years, millions of Americans disengaged from politics because they believed both parties were exactly the same. That belief did not come from nowhere. Both parties accepted corporate money, protected wealthy donors, supported enormous military budgets and repeatedly explained why meaningful relief for working families was impossible.

But “both sides are the same” eventually became a form of political anesthesia. If people believe voting cannot change anything, they stop participating. When ordinary people stop participating, wealthy donors, corporations, lobbyists and highly motivated extremist voting blocs automatically gain more control.

No, every Democrat is not automatically on the working-class side of the menu. That is why primaries matter, individual candidates matter and researching who funds them matters. Democratic socialists are challenging establishment Democrats precisely because party leaders have not voluntarily surrendered their relationship with corporate power.

There is also a substantial portion of the country that will vote for anyone who promises to preserve its racial, religious or cultural power. This movement may never persuade those voters, and pretending otherwise wastes valuable time. The larger opportunity lies with millions of politically detached Americans who assumed government would never materially improve their lives.

The current primary results suggest that assumption is beginning to crack.

Place Your Order

One growing political movement is offering healthcare, childcare, affordable housing, higher wages, stronger unions and an end to endless war. The competing movement is offering billionaire tax cuts, corporate deregulation, religious control, mass deportations, political corruption and more contracts for the permanent war machine.

Those are not the same fucking thing.

For decades, the wealthiest people in America have needed the public terrified of socialism, communism, Marxism and every other “ism” they could throw at us. If Americans stop being frightened by the words and begin evaluating the policies, they may notice that the so-called socialists want to use public money for the public’s healthcare, children, wages, homes and communities.

The billionaires are offering another missile contract.

Americans are not all becoming socialists. They are realizing that democratic socialists are increasingly the only people on the political menu offering ordinary Americans something to eat.

The midterm elections are where we place our order. If you stay home, someone else gets to choose what is served, decide where your money goes and order the country they want while handing you the bill.

Get your ass to the polls and order the country you actually want.

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For years, MAGA insisted that immigrants were stealing American jobs. Now construction companies across the country are desperately looking for workers, and 92% of the firms trying to hire say they cannot find enough qualified people.

So where are you, MAGA?

The jobs are open. The houses still need to be built. Grab your work boots, climb onto that roof in the Texas heat and clock in.

This would be a satisfying political gotcha if the consequences were not so expensive. Donald Trump’s mass-deportation operation is projected to cost taxpayers nearly $269 billion—and that is before counting the economic damage caused by removing experienced workers from industries that already cannot find enough people.

Americans Are Paying to Make the Workforce Smaller

A new calculator from the Economic Policy Institute estimates that the federal government will spend approximately $268.9 billion on mass deportations during Trump’s second term. That works out to an average of roughly $2,358 for every federal taxpayer in America.

That figure covers projected government spending on the deportation operation itself, including immigration agents, detention facilities, transportation and deportation flights. It does not include lost tax revenue, shuttered businesses, delayed construction projects or the higher consumer prices caused by labor shortages.

Americans are effectively paying thousands of dollars to make the workforce smaller. Then they will pay again when there are not enough workers available to build the homes, harvest the food and produce the goods they need.

Texas offers a particularly revealing example. Trump won the state in 2024 with 56.2% of the vote, beating Kamala Harris by nearly 14 percentage points. Texas voters enthusiastically supported the man promising the largest deportation campaign in American history, and now Texas taxpayers and businesses are getting an expensive look at what that promise actually means.

Texas taxpayers are projected to carry roughly $23 billion of the total deportation cost. In Bexar County, which includes San Antonio, the estimated share is more than $1.13 billion. Bexar County itself voted for Harris, but it sits inside a state that overwhelmingly voted for Trump and his immigration agenda.

According to the calculator, Bexar County’s $1.13 billion share could instead pay for approximately 4,615 public school teachers, 4,653 firefighters or health care for nearly 23,000 military veterans. Instead, that money is being spent on an operation that local construction leaders warn is making it harder and more expensive to build homes.

The Construction Workers MAGA Promised Are Not Coming

The claim that 92% of construction firms cannot find qualified workers did not come from a Democratic campaign ad or a liberal social media account. It came from a nationwide workforce survey conducted by the Associated General Contractors of America and the National Center for Construction Education and Research.

The organizations surveyed nearly 1,400 construction firms in late July and early August 2025. Among the companies actively trying to hire, 92% reported difficulty finding qualified workers. Eighty-eight percent had openings for craft positions, while four out of five had salaried openings.

The industry had a serious labor shortage before Trump intensified immigration enforcement, so deportation did not create every problem facing construction. What the administration is doing is taking an industry that already lacks workers and deliberately removing more people from it.

Builders and contractors in South Texas now report shrinking crews, rising subcontractor costs and projects falling behind schedule. Some workers are afraid to appear at job sites because of actual or rumored immigration operations. These disruptions do not stop with the individual worker who stays home or gets detained.

A homebuilder generally does not directly employ every framer, roofer, electrician, plumber, painter and drywall installer involved in constructing a house. Builders hire specialized subcontracting companies to complete different stages, and each subcontractor brings its own crew. When a roofing subcontractor loses half its workers, the builder can lose the crew needed to complete an entire phase of construction—and everyone scheduled to work after that crew must wait.

The construction survey found that 28% of firms had already been affected directly or indirectly by increased immigration enforcement. Ten percent said workers had left or failed to report because of real or rumored enforcement actions, while 20% said subcontractors had lost workers.

Worker shortages were already the industry’s most commonly reported cause of delays. Forty-five percent of firms said at least one project had been delayed because they or their subcontractors lacked enough workers. Overall, 78% had experienced at least one delayed project during the previous year.

Experience Cannot Be Replaced Overnight

The obvious MAGA response will be that construction companies should hire Americans and pay them more. The problem is that these firms are already trying.

Seven out of eight companies surveyed said they had increased base pay as much as or more than they did the previous year. Forty-two percent had increased spending on training and professional development. The biggest obstacle was finding candidates with the necessary experience, skills or licenses, with 57% of companies reporting that available applicants were not qualified.

“Qualified” does not necessarily mean possessing a special government certificate. Electricians, plumbers and some other regulated trades require licenses, but many construction jobs involving framing, roofing, drywall, painting and general labor do not require an individual state license in Texas. Workers become qualified through years of learning the trade, understanding building methods, practicing safety procedures and proving they can perform the work correctly.

Many immigrant workers have accumulated exactly that kind of experience. They did not arrive at a construction site yesterday and magically know how to build a house. They learned these trades by doing them, sometimes for decades.

A builder cannot replace ten years of knowledge by hiring ten random people from an unemployment line. America does not have a secret warehouse filled with trained workers waiting for ICE to clear the job site.

MAGA spent years claiming Americans could not obtain these jobs because immigrants had taken them. Now the openings are available, but the promised army of replacement workers is nowhere to be found.

Once again: Where are you, MAGA?

Immigrant Does Not Mean Undocumented

There is another important distinction missing from the political rhetoric: an immigrant worker is not automatically an undocumented worker. Some immigrants are citizens, some are permanent residents, some hold temporary legal status and some are undocumented.

Approximately 30% of America’s construction workforce is foreign-born. In Texas, that share is closer to 40%, and in some large metropolitan areas it approaches half of the workforce.

Aggressive enforcement affects more than the individual person ICE arrests. Raids and checkpoints create fear across entire job sites, causing workers to stay home because they are worried about being detained, questioned or swept into an operation regardless of their individual status. Contractors lose workers, subcontractors lose crews and projects slow down.

This is how a policy targeting one group can disrupt an entire industry. The effects spread far beyond the number of people formally deported.

The Housing Crisis Is About to Get More Expensive

America is already short approximately 1.5 million homes. Rent is unaffordable in communities across the country, home prices remain out of reach for millions of families and there are not enough available units to meet demand.

Trump’s response is to spend nearly $269 billion removing people from one of the industries America desperately needs to build more housing.

If a builder cannot find enough roofers, the roof takes longer. When the roof is delayed, the electricians, plumbers, drywall installers and painters cannot begin their work on schedule. The builder continues paying for financing, equipment, insurance and other expenses while the unfinished house sits idle.

Those costs do not disappear. They eventually reach the homebuyer or renter.

A construction shortage does not mean one house takes an extra afternoon. It means fewer homes are completed, projects become more expensive and an already severe housing shortage gets worse.

Deportation Does Not Hand the Job to an American

The strongest evidence against MAGA’s economic argument comes from research by economists Chloe East and Elizabeth Cox. Their study, released through the National Bureau of Economic Research, examined what happened in communities experiencing increased immigration arrests.

The researchers found that immigration enforcement reduced employment among undocumented men by approximately 4% to 5%. However, American-born workers did not simply move into the newly available jobs.

For every six undocumented men pushed out of employment, the researchers found that one American-born worker with a high school education or less also lost his job. Job losses among American-born workers were concentrated in industries that rely heavily on undocumented labor, including agriculture, manufacturing and construction.

Workers do not exist in isolated boxes. A construction laborer keeps a project moving for the plumber and electrician. A farmworker supports jobs in food processing, transportation and retail. A factory worker creates work in shipping, maintenance, management and sales.

An electrician cannot wire a house that never gets framed. A plumber cannot install pipes in a project the contractor canceled. A truck driver cannot deliver materials to a job site that shut down.

Immigrant workers are also customers, taxpayers and tenants whose participation creates economic activity. When enough people disappear, businesses lose customers, companies scale back and projects get canceled. American workers lose jobs along with the immigrants MAGA promised they would replace.

The economy is not a game of musical chairs where removing one immigrant automatically creates one open seat for an American. In many industries, removing that immigrant destroys the seat too.

Political Arson Disguised as Economic Policy

The Trump administration argues that immigration enforcement protects American workers and that encouraging people to self-deport is cheaper than arresting, detaining and removing them. It also argues that undocumented immigration carries costs of its own.

There is a legitimate debate to be had about border enforcement, legal immigration, work permits and the rules people should follow. But “deport the immigrants and Americans will take their jobs” is not a serious policy answer. The available evidence does not support it.

If the goal were genuinely to help American workers, the administration would be investing heavily in apprenticeships, trade schools and career education. Even with that investment, it would take years to train enough people to replace the experienced workers being removed today.

The construction industry is now asking Congress and the Trump administration to create more legal pathways for immigrants to enter or remain in the country and work. Industry leaders have even proposed a construction-specific temporary visa because the domestic workforce cannot fill these openings quickly enough.

We cannot know how every individual construction-company owner voted, but Texas chose Trump by nearly 14 points. Business leaders in South Texas have acknowledged that many voters supported stronger border enforcement without expecting raids to target longtime workers and dismantle existing construction crews.

Now the industry wants the same government emptying its job sites to create a new visa program so immigrant workers can fill those jobs again. To be clear, this would not be undocumented labor; the visa would provide legal status. But the request still admits the central truth MAGA refused to acknowledge: the construction industry needs immigrant workers because Americans are not filling all these positions.

How fucking stupid is this?

You support the politician promising to rip millions of workers out of the economy. He begins removing workers from your industry. Your crews shrink, your projects fall behind and your costs increase. Then you ask him for a new legal pathway to bring immigrant workers back into the jobs his crackdown helped empty.

This is not an economic strategy. It is political arson followed by a request for permission to rebuild the house.

The Bill Has Arrived

Mass deportation was sold as a simple trade: remove an immigrant and an American gets the job. Instead, Americans are paying nearly $269 billion for an operation that could make housing more expensive, slow construction and eliminate jobs held by American-born workers.

MAGA got the deportation crackdown it demanded. Now the jobs are waiting, the projects are falling behind and the bill has arrived.

So I will ask one final time: Where are you, MAGA?

Support This Work

The Grizzly Report is for people who are tired of being manipulated by headlines, political theater and confidently repeated lies. I do the digging, verify the claims and connect the pieces so you can understand what is happening, why it matters and what the people in power would prefer you never examine too closely.

Subscribe now

If you regularly read this work and believe independent reporting like this needs to survive, please become a paid subscriber today. Reading is valuable, but paid subscriptions are what give me the time and independence to investigate these stories without answering to political parties, corporate sponsors or algorithms. If you have been considering upgrading, this is the moment when your decision can make a real difference.

Not ready for a paid subscription? You can still help this reporting reach thousands of people who may never encounter it otherwise. Share this article with one person who needs the receipts, post it to your social media, or buy me a coffee to support the research behind the next investigation. Independent media does not have a billion-dollar distribution system; it has readers willing to carry important work into rooms the algorithm will not.

To my Grizzlies who already subscribe, share this work and continue showing up: you are not supporting “an influencer.” You are funding independent reporting, public education and a community committed to defending democracy with facts instead of surrendering to fear. I deeply appreciate every one of you. 💙🐻

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ICE has discovered a weakness in Donald Trump’s mass-deportation plan: Some local police departments are reluctant to join because their officers could be personally sued for wrongful arrests, illegal searches, excessive force or other misconduct.

ICE’s proposed solution is not to reduce the risk of those things happening. It wants to help buy the officers as much as $500,000 in personal-liability insurance.

That raises an obvious question. Aren’t police officers already insured against lawsuits involving their jobs? Usually, yes—but the policies covering ordinary local police work may not cover officers when they step outside that job and begin enforcing federal immigration law.

That difference is the key to understanding what ICE is actually building.

This Is Not a Bill Awaiting a Vote

This proposal is not legislation. No member of Congress has introduced an “ICE Insurance Act,” and there is no scheduled House or Senate vote. The plan is coming directly from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an agency inside the Department of Homeland Security.

ICE revealed the proposal through a federal planning notice seeking private-sector help with outreach, training, communications and administrative support for its partnerships with local police. The contractor ICE is considering would also locate an insurance provider and process reimbursements for participating officers. ICE asked companies to submit feedback by Thursday, August 20.

No contract has been awarded, and ICE has not announced a launch date or total cost. We also do not know the final policy language, which claims would qualify or what conduct would be excluded. This is still a developing administrative plan, but it is far enough along that ICE is asking the insurance industry how to make it work.

Under the proposal, participating officers would purchase professional-liability coverage providing up to $500,000 in personal protection. ICE would reimburse each officer as much as $250 annually for the premium. Depending on the final policy, the coverage could help pay legal fees, settlements and judgments when an officer is accused of misconduct.

How Local Police Become Immigration Officers

The proposed coverage is not intended for federal ICE agents. It would cover state and local officers participating in a program called 287(g), named after the section of federal immigration law that created it.

Through 287(g), ICE can train and deputize local officers to perform duties normally assigned to federal immigration officers. ICE offers three versions of the partnership, but they do not all operate the same way.

The Jail Enforcement Model allows local officers to identify and process people who are already being held in jail. The Warrant Service Officer Model allows them to serve immigration warrants on people already in local custody.

The most aggressive version is the Task Force Model. It allows participating officers to question and arrest people over their immigration status while performing routine police work. An ordinary traffic stop, DUI checkpoint or field investigation can therefore become a federal immigration investigation.

The federal government stopped using the Task Force Model in 2012 after years of complaints involving racial profiling and civil-rights violations. It was not restored even during Trump’s first term. Trump brought it back in 2025, and its growth has been extraordinary.

As of August 14, ICE’s official list showed 2,315 separate 287(g) agreements covering 39 states, although one agency can sign more than one type of agreement. The Associated Press reports that nearly 1,600 agencies across 32 states now participate specifically in the Task Force Model. Arrests through local ICE partnerships averaged about 3,000 per month during the first two months of 2026, compared with approximately 250 per month in 2024.

That is a twelvefold increase.

Your Police Department Cannot Do Two Jobs at Once

When local officers are assigned to ICE operations, they are not simultaneously patrolling neighborhoods, answering burglary calls or investigating local crimes. One officer cannot be in two places at once.

The federal government now offers substantial reimbursements to participating departments, so it would not be accurate to claim that local taxpayers always pay every dollar. ICE can reimburse eligible Task Force officers’ salaries and benefits, cover overtime, and help pay for equipment and vehicles. Federal reimbursement, however, does not create unlimited officers, time or institutional capacity.

These officers are still employed by local departments, carry local badges and rely on relationships built inside their communities. But while they are working toward ICE’s objectives, their attention is serving a federal deportation campaign rather than the local public-safety work for which their departments were created.

That tradeoff becomes even more serious when residents no longer trust those local badges.

A woman experiencing domestic violence may avoid calling the police if she fears an officer will begin investigating the immigration status of everyone in her home. A witness to a serious crime may refuse to cooperate. A worker being abused by an employer may stay silent because reporting the abuse could expose a family member to immigration enforcement.

Once a police department becomes part of ICE, people cannot neatly separate its two roles. Every interaction with local law enforcement can carry an additional threat.

Why Ordinary Police Insurance May Not Cover This

Cities, counties and states normally carry liability coverage for routine police work. Immigration enforcement may fall outside those policies because it involves a separate federal authority, different duties and additional constitutional risks.

That problem is already unfolding in Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania Counties Risk Pool decided to exclude proactive immigration enforcement under 287(g) from its coverage. Participating counties were then forced to seek separate insurance.

The sheriff in Butler County found additional coverage for thirteen deputies at a reported cost of $20,000 per year. He said federal funding would pay the bill.

Why would an insurer draw a line around immigration enforcement? Because lawsuits arising from this work can involve wrongful arrests, unlawful detention, illegal searches, excessive force and other alleged violations of constitutional rights.

That does not mean every deputized officer will commit misconduct, and an allegation is not the same thing as a finding of guilt. Police officers can face expensive lawsuits even when a court eventually finds that they acted legally. Liability insurance is common precisely because defending a baseless claim can still cost a fortune.

But ICE is not merely responding to a normal insurance need. It is trying to remove a specific obstacle that has made some departments reluctant to join its program. Immigration enforcement creates additional risk, and ICE wants to make that risk easier for local officers to accept.

Layer After Layer of Protection

Officers in 287(g) partnerships may already have other legal protections. The agreements say officers performing authorized immigration duties are acting under federal authority, which ICE argues can protect them from being sued individually.

An officer facing a civil lawsuit can also ask the Justice Department to provide legal representation. DOJ makes the final decision, however, and the agreements warn local departments that they may still be responsible for liability costs.

It is worth remembering who now controls that Justice Department. Todd Blanche was sworn in as attorney general on August 10 after representing Trump in three of his criminal cases, a fact included in DOJ’s own biography. Blanche has also declined to promise that DOJ will operate independently from Trump and the White House.

The proposed insurance could therefore become another layer in an already expanding shield. An officer could argue that he acted under federal authority, request a lawyer from Trump’s former personal attorney at DOJ and then rely on an insurance policy covering up to $500,000 of whatever financial exposure remains.

Insurance would not provide blanket immunity. It would not automatically stop a lawsuit, erase disciplinary consequences or necessarily cover deliberate criminal conduct. What it could do is dramatically reduce the officer’s personal financial risk.

That matters because potential liability is one of the few brakes left when government officers receive extraordinary power. ICE is now trying to make that brake less costly.

The Deportation Bounty-Hunter System

Liability insurance is only the newest financial incentive. The federal government can reimburse the full salary and benefits of eligible Task Force officers, pay overtime worth up to 25% of an officer’s salary, and help purchase equipment and vehicles.

DHS has also offered participating agencies quarterly “performance awards.” According to DHS’s announcement, agencies can receive awards of up to $1,000 per eligible Task Force officer based on how effectively they assist ICE.

Consider the complete structure. ICE supplies the federal authority, reimburses salaries and benefits, helps purchase vehicles and equipment, pays overtime, rewards performance and now wants to insure officers against personal liability.

At that point, describing these officers as federally funded immigration bounty hunters is not wild exaggeration. It is a description of the incentive system ICE has created.

This is how Trump can build an enormous deportation force without directly hiring every officer. The administration can take police departments that already exist, pay them to pursue federal immigration objectives and extend ICE’s reach into ordinary traffic stops and neighborhood encounters.

Local Police Do Not Need ICE to Arrest Dangerous People

ICE and participating sheriffs argue that 287(g) helps remove dangerous people and makes communities safer. That framing intentionally blends two different questions: Has this person committed a crime, and does the federal government believe this person has lawful immigration status?

Local police already have authority to arrest people for robbery, assault, rape, murder and other criminal conduct. They do not need a 287(g) agreement to protect their communities from someone committing a violent crime.

The additional authority is about immigration status. Being subject to deportation is not the same thing as being dangerous, and many immigration violations are civil matters rather than violent crimes. A person can be removable without ever threatening anyone.

The Task Force Model enables local officers to turn a routine encounter into an immigration investigation. That increases the possibility that American citizens, legal residents and immigrants with valid claims will be questioned, searched or detained because an officer made an incorrect assumption.

Insurance may eventually pay part of the legal bill when something goes wrong. It cannot return the time a person spent detained, repair the trauma of a wrongful arrest or restore trust after an entire community begins viewing local police as an extension of ICE.

The Damage Will Outlast Trump

Local officers should think seriously about what this partnership will mean after Trump leaves office. Administrations change, federal priorities shift and ICE operations eventually end. The consequences for police-community relationships do not disappear with them.

Officers cannot spend years participating in immigration raids, questioning residents about their status and turning traffic stops into deportation investigations, then remove the ICE authority and expect immediate trust. Credibility takes years to build and minutes to destroy.

When residents stop reporting crimes, cooperating as witnesses and asking police for help, the entire community becomes less safe. That danger is not limited to undocumented immigrants. It affects everyone who depends on witnesses, victims and police officers being able to work together.

ICE describes local departments as a “force multiplier.” That phrase reveals exactly how the federal government sees them: not primarily as institutions responsible to their own communities, but as an existing workforce that can be redirected toward Trump’s deportation goals.

Find Out Whether Your Department Joined

ICE publishes its participating-agency list at ICE.gov/identify-and-arrest/287g. Search the page for your state, county, sheriff’s office or police department. The list identifies the agencies and the models under which they participate.

If your local department appears, ask how many officers have been deputized and how much federal money the department has received. Ask how its performance awards are calculated, what insurance covers the officers and who pays when someone’s rights are violated.

Ask whether the agreement was discussed during a public meeting and what process exists for reporting misconduct connected to immigration enforcement. Sheriffs are often elected, while police chiefs, mayors, city councils and county commissions remain answerable to the public.

This insurance proposal does not prove that ICE is planning to violate anyone’s rights. What it proves is that fear of lawsuits and personal financial consequences has become an obstacle to ICE’s expansion—and ICE is actively trying to remove it.

Trump cannot create the deportation system he wants with federal agents alone. He needs local police departments to become part of it. ICE is offering money, vehicles, equipment, federal authority, performance awards and legal support to persuade them.

Now it may add a $500,000 insurance shield.

Go here to see if your local law enforcement is participating: https://themarkup.org/tools/2025/04/16/law-enforcement-ice-cooperation-tracker

Support This Work

The Grizzly Report is for people who are tired of being manipulated by headlines, political theater and confidently repeated lies. I do the digging, verify the claims and connect the pieces so you can understand what is happening, why it matters and what the people in power would prefer you never examine too closely.

Subscribe now

If you regularly read this work and believe independent reporting like this needs to survive, please become a paid subscriber today. Reading is valuable, but paid subscriptions are what give me the time and independence to investigate these stories without answering to political parties, corporate sponsors or algorithms. If you have been considering upgrading, this is the moment when your decision can make a real difference.

Not ready for a paid subscription? You can still help this reporting reach thousands of people who may never encounter it otherwise. Share this article with one person who needs the receipts, post it to your social media, or buy me a coffee to support the research behind the next investigation. Independent media does not have a billion-dollar distribution system; it has readers willing to carry important work into rooms the algorithm will not.

To my Grizzlies who already subscribe, share this work and continue showing up: you are not supporting “an influencer.” You are funding independent reporting, public education and a community committed to defending democracy with facts instead of surrendering to fear. I deeply appreciate every one of you. 💙🐻

Video Version:

The United States government has spent decades and millions of dollars studying what keeps service members mentally healthy, physically capable and ready to fight. It knows people need adequate food, sleep, functioning sanitation, communication with their families, opportunities to leave the ship and meaningful recovery between deployments. Those things are not luxurious little bonuses the military provides when somebody can squeeze them into the schedule. They are part of maintaining a functional fighting force.

Yet after the Pentagon kept roughly 5,000 sailors and Marines aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln deployed for more than 260 days—including a modern Navy record of more than 200 consecutive days without a port call—MAGA’s response has been to tell them to man up and stop complaining. If they call home struggling, apparently their parents and spouses are supposed to tell them to suck it up.

Are you fucking kidding me?

Only One Side Is Honoring the Contract

The sailors aboard the Lincoln volunteered to serve their country. They trained, deployed, followed orders and accepted that military service involves danger, separation and extraordinary hardship. They left San Diego in November expecting to return home in May.

May came and went. The Lincoln was rerouted to support Donald Trump’s war with Iran, its deployment was repeatedly extended and the people aboard it continued operating aircraft, maintaining weapons, handling fuel and keeping a nuclear-powered warship running. They did all of this without a dependable answer about when they would finally be allowed to return home.

That is not evidence that these sailors are weak. It is evidence that the civilian leadership of the United States military sent people into a conflict without a sustainable plan for rotating them out. Incompetence does not always look like somebody accidentally pressing the wrong button. Sometimes it looks like thousands of exhausted people being forced to compensate for the fact that the men above them failed to plan far enough ahead.

Military service represents a contract in both directions. Service members agree to obey lawful orders, accept extraordinary risks and go where the country sends them. In return, the military assumes responsibility for training them, equipping them, feeding them, protecting their health, communicating honestly with their families and bringing them home when the mission allows.

Only one side is honoring that contract aboard the Lincoln. The sailors are still standing watch, launching aircraft, maintaining the ship and carrying out the mission. Their government has extended their deployment, denied that anything is seriously wrong and attacked their character when they or their families speak publicly.

The Deployment Is Never Long Enough When Someone Else Is Carrying It

Families connected to the Lincoln have reported moldy showers, broken toilets, questionable water, shortages of food and hygiene products, declining morale and increasingly desperate messages from the ship. Multiple families have also alleged that sailors have attempted to go overboard or harm themselves. The Navy has not publicly confirmed a precise number, so that figure remains an allegation, but Military Times reported that the Navy acknowledged concerns about the crew’s psychological readiness and said support was available aboard the carrier.

When Trump was asked whether the deployment had lasted too long, he replied, “Not nearly long enough.” Of course he did. Trump is standing on land, Pete Hegseth is standing on land and the Fox News personalities questioning these sailors’ toughness are sitting inside climate-controlled television studios.

The deployment is never long enough when somebody else is carrying it. The food is never inadequate when somebody else has to eat it. The conditions are never unbearable when somebody else has to live in them.

Hegseth dismissed reports about the Lincoln as misleading. Military officials praised the crew’s resilience, insisted the carrier was sufficiently supplied and pointed to its reportedly low number of recorded mental-health cases. Their message was clear: nothing to see here.

Then the story reached the national media, and another aircraft carrier began moving toward the Middle East.

If Everything Was Fine, Why Did Another Carrier Start Moving?

Major reports about desperate sailors and frightened families broke on August 11 and 12. On August 13, news organizations reported that the USS George Washington was heading toward the Middle East to relieve the Lincoln. Officials have described the carrier rotation as preplanned, and the available evidence does not prove that the reporting caused the Navy to move the ship.

The timing still raises legitimate questions. If relief was always imminent, why were families left begging for basic information at town halls? Why did they lack a dependable return date? Why did it take national scrutiny before the public received any assurance that another carrier was moving toward the region?

Sending the George Washington is not proof that Hegseth had everything under control. The George Washington is the Navy’s only forward-deployed aircraft carrier and is based in Japan. Moving it toward the Middle East pulls a major American military asset away from the western Pacific while tensions involving China and North Korea have not disappeared.

That is not a clean solution to a well-managed operation. It is another scramble—moving one carrier across the world to plug a hole created by an unsustainable mission somewhere else. Instead of asking why Hegseth’s Pentagon did not have adequate relief ready for a war it chose to fight, MAGA would rather scream at an exhausted sailor over tuna and noodles.

“I Suffered, So You Should Too” Is Not Leadership

Fox News contributor Joey Jones watched a Lincoln sailor describe the food situation and responded, “How weak are you?” He mocked the sailor for speaking publicly, reminded him that he had volunteered and suggested he could eventually leave the military and become one of those Democratic veterans who complains.

Jones is a Marine veteran who lost both of his legs to an explosive device in Afghanistan. His service and sacrifice are real, but surviving something horrific does not make every opinion he expresses about another service member’s suffering correct. “I suffered, so shut up about your suffering” is not wisdom earned through experience.

It is hazing.

A veteran’s experience should make that person more capable of recognizing when service members are approaching a dangerous breaking point. It should not become a weapon used to protect politicians who have demonstrated a tiny fraction of the courage they demand from everyone else.

The entire “you volunteered” argument is bullshit. Volunteering for military service is not volunteering for government negligence. It does not mean agreeing to live indefinitely with failed sanitation, eat whatever remains after the supply chain breaks down or spend month after month at sea because civilian leaders began an open-ended war without arranging sufficient relief.

These sailors volunteered to serve the United States. They did not volunteer to become disposable resources for Pete Hegseth’s political brand.

Rest Is Part of the Job

Port calls, liberty, leave and post-deployment recovery are different military policies, but they exist for the same fundamental reason: human beings cannot operate indefinitely without rest. The military has spent decades studying fatigue, operational stress, deployment length and family stability because all of them directly affect performance.

Active-duty service members earn 30 days of leave every year because recovery is part of military compensation. The Pentagon tracks how many days personnel spend away from their home stations. Federal law identifies 220 deployed days within one year as a “high-deployment threshold,” while Pentagon policy establishes a goal of three days at home for every day an active-duty service member spends deployed.

Operational necessity can override those guidelines. Their existence nevertheless proves that the military understands prolonged deployment as a condition requiring active management—not a test of whether individual service members can suffer quietly enough.

The Navy’s own Morale, Welfare and Recreation program says its services contribute to “resiliency, retention, readiness and quality of life.” Rest supports resilience, resilience supports retention and retention supports readiness. That is not civilian softness being imposed upon the military; that is the Navy explaining what keeps the Navy functioning.

The government has also funded fatigue-management programs and research designed to identify sailors at elevated risk of performance errors or accidents caused by extreme sleep deficiency. That matters aboard a carrier filled with aircraft, ammunition, fuel, industrial machinery and a nuclear reactor. Food, sleep, sanitation and recovery are not cruise-ship amenities in that environment. They are safety infrastructure.

The Government Accountability Office has repeatedly pushed the Navy to address crew shortages, excessive workloads, fatigue and inadequate sleep because they threaten operational readiness. As recently as 2025, some of those recommendations remained incompletely implemented.

The government understands that a jet requires maintenance. It understands that an aircraft carrier requires maintenance. It apparently becomes deeply confused when the equipment requiring maintenance is a human being.

No Return Date Changes Everything

The treatment of the families waiting at home may be the cruelest part of this entire story. A difficult deployment with an end date is something a family can organize its life around. Spouses mark the calendar, count the weeks, explain the absence to their children and make temporary arrangements for child care, work, bills, holidays and emergencies.

It is still extraordinarily difficult, but there is a finish line. When a return date repeatedly moves, that finish line disappears.

Families wake up every morning knowing someone they love is inside a war zone. They hear the strain in that person’s voice, receive messages about deteriorating conditions and see reports about sailors attempting to go overboard. Then, when they ask military leaders when their person will come home, they cannot get a dependable answer.

That is psychologically cruel. Research into military-family life has specifically found that uncertainty surrounding a service member’s return contributes to the emotional roller coaster experienced by spouses and children. The military has known this for years.

The Navy’s own family framework says, “We recruit a sailor, but we retain a family.” It calls military families vital contributors to mission success and recognizes the Navy’s responsibilities to them. If families are genuinely part of the Navy team, they deserve honest communication—not condescension when they raise an alarm.

The government cannot depend upon parents and spouses to hold everything together for nine months and then treat them like disloyal troublemakers when they demand answers. Nor should those families be expected to become an unpaid extension of the chain of command by telling distressed sailors to suck it up.

Home may be the only place where a sailor feels safe telling the truth.

Punish People for Speaking, Then Cite the Silence

The Defense Health Agency has spent years fighting the belief that requesting mental-health care demonstrates weakness. It explicitly warns that stigma can stop service members from asking for help. Navy suicide-prevention guidance describes seeking help as evidence of strength and sound judgment.

Then a nationally televised Fox News program calls a sailor weak for speaking publicly.

Military leaders have pointed to the Lincoln’s allegedly low number of recorded mental-health cases as evidence that the ship is managing the deployment successfully. Hopefully, that number means most members of the crew are coping well. But a low number of reported cases cannot prove the absence of distress when the culture surrounding those reports punishes people for admitting that they are struggling.

You cannot publicly humiliate the people who speak and then cite the silence of everyone else as proof that nothing is wrong. That is not evidence of wellness. It may simply be evidence that the stigma is working.

Even after these sailors return, the effects of this deployment will not disappear the moment they step onto land. Their nervous systems have spent months operating under stress, their spouses have learned to manage households alone and their children have adapted to a parent’s absence. Couples will have to renegotiate responsibilities, sailors will have to adjust to home life and entire families will have to learn how to live together after surviving apart.

For some, reintegration will go smoothly. For others, depression, anxiety, anger, trauma, sleep problems and relationship strain will follow them home. That is precisely why mental-health support cannot begin only after a service member reaches a crisis—and why a culture built around “suck it up” is so dangerous.

What Is This Suffering Supposed to Accomplish?

These sailors are not only enduring an open-ended deployment. They are enduring it for a war most Americans did not want and increasingly do not believe benefits the country.

An Ipsos poll in March found that 58 percent of Americans disapproved of military strikes against Iran. A May poll found that a majority believed the war was hurting American interests more than helping them. By July, an Economist/YouGov poll found that most Americans considered the war the wrong decision and wanted it brought to an end.

Put yourself aboard that ship. You are exhausted, your family has no dependable return date and you are serving inside a conflict most of the country does not support. You can see the incompetence and chaos surrounding the people directing the war while those same people question your toughness from the safety of land.

Eventually, any rational human being asks: What the fuck is all this suffering for?

That question is not unpatriotic. It means the person being asked to sacrifice still recognizes that sacrifice is supposed to accomplish something.

This Is How You Lose Sailors and Their Families

The Navy recently met its 2026 recruiting goal ahead of schedule, signing up 45,000 future sailors. That is good news for the service, but meeting this year’s goal does not erase the message being broadcast to next year’s recruits or the military families currently deciding whether to reenlist.

Young people considering the Navy are watching. Their parents are watching. Military spouses are watching.

They are learning that the government may provide a return date and repeatedly move it. They are learning that leadership may deny deteriorating conditions until families and reporters force the issue into public view. They are learning that speaking publicly may result in a television personality calling them weak while the officials responsible for the mission evade accountability.

Recruitment gets a service member through the door. Retention requires enough trust to persuade that person—and their family—to stay.

How many Lincoln sailors will reenlist after this? How many spouses will decide that their families cannot survive another deployment under this leadership? How many parents will encourage their children to serve under Pete Hegseth after watching the government treat these sailors as disposable?

The Navy says it recruits a sailor but retains a family. This is how it loses both.

This Is What Incompetence Looks Like

This is what incompetent military leadership looks like: begin a war without the support of the American people, fail to create a sustainable rotation, keep thousands of sailors at sea for a record-breaking uninterrupted stretch and leave their families without a dependable end date.

Then deny that conditions are deteriorating. Attack the people who speak. Move another carrier across the world while continuing to insist that everything was already under control.

The sailors aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln have proven their toughness. Pete Hegseth has not proven his competence, Donald Trump has not demonstrated that this suffering serves a coherent purpose and Fox News has once again revealed what “support the troops” actually means to MAGA.

They support service members as symbols. They support them in photographs, campaign slogans and recruiting advertisements. They support them as long as they remain silent, useful and politically convenient.

These sailors have upheld their side of the contract. It is long past time for their government to uphold the other side.

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Video Version:

I need everyone to remain calm because Zohran Mamdani’s socialist reign of terror is escalating. First, approximately two million New Yorkers narrowly escaped another rent increase. Then his administration began providing free childcare for two-year-olds. Now he is backing legislation that could force Amazon to employ Amazon drivers.

Yes, the people wearing Amazon uniforms, driving Amazon vans, carrying Amazon scanners, delivering Amazon packages and following routes designed by Amazon may eventually become Amazon employees. Holy shit, guys. This is terrifying.

Amazon’s lobbying operation against the legislation reportedly includes Jessica Schumer—the daughter of Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer—because apparently the Democratic establishment is available to protect working people unless a trillion-dollar corporation needs help avoiding responsibility for them. The entire fight offers a remarkably clear example of what Mamdani represents, why corporate America is determined to resist it and why MAGA desperately needs voters to remain frightened of the word “socialism.”

Imagine living in a country where your taxpayer dollars were used to improve your actual life. Government might lower childcare costs, stabilize rent, recover money owed to workers, eliminate junk fees, improve public transportation and force corporations to accept responsibility for the people making them rich. It is basically Stalin—but with affordable daycare.

Amazon’s Revolutionary New Job Title: “Not Our Employee”

When an Amazon package arrives at your house, the driver is probably wearing an Amazon uniform and operating an Amazon-branded van. They may be carrying an Amazon scanner, following a route created by Amazon and attempting to meet performance quotas established by Amazon. Any reasonable person would look at that arrangement and conclude that the person is an Amazon employee.

That is adorable. Many of these drivers technically work for smaller subcontractors known as Delivery Service Partners, or DSPs. Amazon created this system roughly a decade ago, allowing smaller delivery companies to formally hire and manage the drivers performing Amazon’s last-mile deliveries.

Amazon nevertheless retains extraordinary control over the operation. It influences which drivers are approved, when they work, where they drive, which packages they deliver, what equipment they use and how quickly those packages are expected to arrive. Amazon has all the control of an employer with the legal responsibilities of a concerned bystander.

Consider what happens when a driver is assigned hundreds of packages during one shift. The driver begins speeding because falling behind could cost them their job, crashes while rushing through a neighborhood or injures themselves carrying packages up several flights of stairs. Under the existing system, Amazon can argue that the driver is not its employee and push responsibility for the workers’ compensation claim, safety violation, vehicle problem or labor dispute onto the smaller delivery company.

Amazon controls the machine. When the machine hurts somebody, however, Amazon can point toward the smallest company in the room and say, “I have never seen that driver before in my life.”

The Terrifying Proposal That Employers Employ People

The Delivery Protection Act would interfere with this beautiful arrangement. Certain last-mile warehouses would be required to obtain licenses from New York City and comply with safety, training and worker-protection standards. Companies operating those facilities could no longer contract out the workers performing the core warehouse and delivery services.

Those workers would have to be employed directly by the facility operator. In Amazon’s case, that means the company establishing the quotas, assigning the routes and controlling the working conditions would also become responsible for what those conditions produce. Please try not to panic: this radical communist legislation proposes that the employer be responsible for its employees.

The proposal would also establish protections against retaliation, require safety training and give workers remedies when their rights are violated. If a facility operator ended an existing subcontract because of the law, it would be required to offer those contracted workers direct employment before hiring anyone else. Those offers would have to preserve existing rights, benefits and collective-bargaining protections.

The legislation does not eliminate every possible disruption, and nobody can guarantee how Amazon would respond. It does, however, make the intended principle unusually clear: corporations should not be allowed to exercise employer-level control while outsourcing employer-level responsibility.

The Public-Safety Costs Amazon Would Prefer We Ignore

The Delivery Protection Act is not only about worker classifications. It also addresses what happens in the neighborhoods surrounding enormous last-mile delivery facilities. A 2025 report from the New York City comptroller found that 78 percent of the areas surrounding those facilities experienced an increase in injury-producing crashes after the centers opened.

Near two major facilities in Queens, crashes increased by approximately 48 percent around an Amazon warehouse and 53 percent around a FedEx location. That does not prove every nearby crash was caused by a delivery driver, and it would be dishonest to claim otherwise. It does show why the relationship between warehouse operations, corporate quotas and neighborhood safety deserves serious examination.

When companies assign enormous delivery routes, impose strict performance expectations and constantly pressure workers to move faster, the predictable result is people rushing through crowded streets to avoid falling behind. The public then absorbs the consequences of a business model designed to move as many packages as possible while allowing the corporation directing the work to maintain legal distance from the workers performing it.

The legislation currently lists 34 of New York City’s 51 council members as sponsors, enough to represent a majority, plus Public Advocate Jumaane Williams. It has not passed and remains laid over in committee. Council Speaker Julie Menin is not listed as a sponsor, so Mamdani’s endorsement gives the bill greater political weight without turning it into a completed victory.

Amazon Discovers Its Deep Concern for Small Businesses

Amazon argues that the legislation could destroy more than 40 small delivery companies and threaten more than 5,000 jobs. It has also suggested that it could reconsider operating last-mile facilities inside New York City if the bill becomes law. Those concerns should not be waved away simply because they come from Amazon.

The company is large enough to restructure its operations, relocate facilities or make implementation extraordinarily difficult. The employee-retention provision is designed to protect existing workers, but it cannot guarantee a painless transition. Lawmakers should examine the operational consequences, listen to the affected contractors and determine whether additional protections are needed.

Amazon’s underlying message, however, remains remarkably simple: if New York City forces us to accept responsibility for the people delivering our packages, we may take our warehouses and leave. That is more than a disagreement about regulation. It is a trillion-dollar corporation attempting to overrule elected power by threatening economic punishment.

According to public lobbying disclosures and reporting from The American Prospect, Jessica Schumer is reportedly leading Amazon’s lobbying effort against the legislation. That does not mean Chuck Schumer controls his adult daughter’s career or is secretly directing Amazon’s campaign. It does illustrate why democratic socialists do not automatically view the Democratic establishment as an ally.

A corporation wants to preserve a system that shields it from responsibility. A democratic socialist mayor wants to challenge that system. Meanwhile, the daughter of the highest-ranking Democrat in the Senate is reportedly helping the corporation fight him.

Nothing strange to see here, folks. Please return to arguing about whether Mamdani ate his pizza correctly.

Seven Months of Unrelenting Horror

Mamdani has been mayor for a little over seven months. During that time, his administration has moved on rent, childcare, worker compensation, junk fees, grocery costs and public transportation. Some policies have already produced measurable results, some are just beginning and others remain campaign promises that could still fail.

That distinction matters because Mamdani does not need to be transformed into a political superhero for his governing record to be examined honestly. Every proposal should be judged according to what it costs, whom it reaches and whether it produces the promised results. The question is whether the terrifying caricature of democratic socialism bears any resemblance to what his administration is actually doing.

Compare that with Donald Trump’s return to the White House. Trump promised to lower prices immediately, but overall prices remain higher than when he took office. His administration has weakened worker protections, attacked collective-bargaining rights and concentrated more authority in the presidency.

Mamdani entered office asking how government could make ordinary people’s lives more affordable. Trump entered office asking how much more power the president could accumulate. That difference is the entire story.

Two Million Tenants Narrowly Escape Another Rent Increase

On June 25, the New York City Rent Guidelines Board voted seven to one to freeze increases on one-year and two-year renewal leases beginning between October 1, 2026, and September 30, 2027. The decision covers approximately one million rent-stabilized apartments housing around two million people. In a city of roughly 8.58 million residents, nearly one in four New Yorkers lives in a home affected by the decision.

For a tenant paying $2,000 per month, the previous guidelines could have produced a 3 percent increase on a one-year renewal. That would raise the monthly rent to $2,060 and cost the tenant another $720 over the year. Because each increase becomes part of the base used to calculate future increases, tenants continue paying for it long after the original lease expires.

Under the new guidelines, the adjustment for a qualifying renewal is zero. The tenant keeps the $720. I hope the billionaires are okay.

Mamdani did not personally cast the seven votes. The Rent Guidelines Board did. But the mayor appoints the board, Mamdani selected six of its nine members and he explicitly campaigned on using that authority to secure a rent freeze.

Landlords have legitimate objections. They argue that insurance, taxes, repairs and maintenance costs continue rising even when rents do not, and a coalition of property owners has filed a lawsuit challenging the decision. A rent freeze also protects existing tenants without creating the additional housing New York desperately needs.

Those limitations deserve scrutiny, but they do not change the political sequence. Mamdani told voters he would appoint a board that would freeze rents. New Yorkers elected him, and six months later the board did exactly that.

He ran on something, won and followed through. I understand this is an unfamiliar sequence of events in American politics.

The Toddlers Are Next

Mamdani also campaigned on universal childcare. The program is not universal yet, and nobody should pretend that it is. This fall, just over 2,000 two-year-olds will receive free childcare in selected neighborhoods.

More than 5,700 families applied for those seats, meaning the city received nearly three applications for every available spot. According to the city, 82 percent of the families receiving offers were matched with one of their top three choices, while more than half received their first choice. The plan is to expand the program to approximately 12,000 seats next year and eventually cover every two-year-old in the city by the end of Mamdani’s four-year term.

That is an ambitious promise, and he should be judged on whether he delivers it. The first 2,000 seats cover only a fraction of the families who need help. Demand already exceeds supply, and creating a genuinely universal program will require far more money, staff and childcare capacity than the city currently has.

For the first 2,000 families, however, the city estimates that each seat could save an average of approximately $26,000 per year. That money can pay rent, buy groceries, cover medical bills, eliminate debt or allow a parent to remain in the workforce instead of watching an entire salary disappear into childcare expenses. It remains in the family’s budget and circulates through the local economy.

The same MAGA movement that tells American women to produce more babies opposes nearly every public investment that would make raising those babies financially possible. They want the birth; everything after that is apparently a personal budgeting failure. Mamdani is attempting to build the infrastructure that allows families to have children without being financially destroyed.

Ladies, please clutch your pearls in an orderly fashion.

Delivery Workers Mysteriously Receive More Money

Before Mamdani became mayor, New York City had already established minimum-pay protections for app-based restaurant delivery workers. Before those protections, the city estimated that delivery workers earned roughly $12 per hour before tips. The minimum rate eventually reached $22.13 per hour in April 2026 following an inflation adjustment.

Companies including Uber Eats and DoorDash responded to the original pay increase by making the tipping option more difficult for customers to find. The city estimates those design changes cost delivery workers approximately $550 million in tips. New protections that took effect in January required the platforms to display tipping options clearly and treat tips separately from the minimum-pay requirement.

Mamdani did not write the original minimum-pay law, create every subsequent protection or personally hand each worker a check. His administration enforced the rules. By late July, the city estimated that approximately 70,000 delivery workers had received an additional $104 million in tips.

Tips doubled, and if that pace continues, the average delivery worker could receive approximately $2,287 more per year. This horrifying democratic socialism forced corporations to follow an existing law. Someone alert Fox News.

The Government Is Coming for Your Impossible-to-Cancel Subscription

Mamdani’s administration has also finalized a click-to-cancel rule requiring companies to make subscriptions as easy to cancel as they are to start. It has proposed requiring businesses to display the complete price before checkout instead of advertising one number and adding mandatory fees after customers have already invested time in the purchase. During its first 100 days, the administration also announced $9.3 million in restitution for workers and small businesses.

These policies do not receive the same attention as a rent freeze because corporate exploitation often arrives in tiny pieces. It appears as a $7 fee, a $20 charge, an unwanted subscription renewal or a cancellation process seemingly designed by someone who wants to watch you suffer. Each individual charge appears too small to justify the time required to fight it.

Multiply that experience across millions of people and billions of transactions, and those tiny charges become an enormously profitable business model. Mamdani’s administration has taken the extreme position that deliberately exhausting customers should not be a revenue stream. This man is out of control.

The Grocery Stores That Do Not Exist Yet

Mamdani also campaigned on creating five city-supported grocery stores, with one in each borough. His administration has committed $70 million to the initiative and identified La Marqueta in East Harlem as the first location. That store is not expected to open until 2029, so Mamdani has not delivered inexpensive public groceries yet.

The concept is that publicly owned land and public investment could reduce some of the overhead expenses private grocery stores face. A private operator would still run the daily business, but the store would not need to generate the same returns for a corporate landlord or distant shareholders. More revenue could theoretically be directed toward affordable staple foods, employee wages and service in neighborhoods abandoned by major grocery chains.

Will it work? We do not know. New York must prove that it can control costs, keep shelves stocked, attract customers and prevent the project from becoming an expensive public failure.

But compare the two approaches. Mamdani is attempting to create a grocery store that could lower prices. Trump recently attempted to convince Americans that the media invented the word “affordability.”

One of these men is experimenting with a possible solution. The other is arguing that your grocery bill is a media hoax. Choose your fighter.

The Bus Update Became Even More Terrifying

Mamdani has not delivered free city buses. That campaign promise remains stalled because the state controls the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, and eliminating fares would require replacing an estimated $600 million to $800 million in annual revenue. Riders still pay fares, and Mamdani should be judged on whether he eventually secures the funding required to eliminate them.

His administration has made progress on improving the quality of bus service, and a new development this week makes that section of his record more concrete. On August 12, construction began on the first dedicated busway in the Bronx. The project will serve the Tremont Avenue corridor, where buses currently travel at less than five miles per hour during rush hour.

The redesign will create one mile of dedicated busway, add another quarter-mile of bus lane and include safety improvements at dangerous intersections. City officials estimate that approximately 39,000 daily riders could benefit. The project also targets a street where nearly 630 people were injured in crashes between 2020 and 2024, including 46 people who were seriously injured and four who were killed.

No, the buses are not free yet. They may simply begin moving faster than a moderately motivated pedestrian while reducing the number of people injured on the street. Absolutely dystopian.

And Now He Is Giving Children Broadway Tickets

In case the rent freeze, free childcare, recovered tips and faster buses were insufficiently frightening, Mamdani made another announcement this week. More than 2,000 free Broadway tickets are being offered to New York City high-school students through a lottery. Every student who enters also receives a free two-month Theatre Development Fund membership.

That membership provides access to discounted Broadway, Off-Broadway and Off-Off Broadway performances. It also includes free or discounted admission at more than 20 cultural institutions, including museums, gardens, theaters and performing-arts venues. The initiative is limited in duration, but it reflects the same underlying governing philosophy found throughout Mamdani’s agenda: public life should offer ordinary people more than punishment, fees and bureaucracy.

First the toddlers received childcare. Now the teenagers get Broadway tickets and museum access. At this rate, New York’s children could become both supervised and cultured.

We must stop this man.

Democratic Socialism Is Not Authoritarian Communism

Mamdani did not campaign as a moderate and reveal a secret socialist agenda after winning. He told voters he wanted to freeze rents, expand childcare, create public grocery stores, improve buses and use government to challenge concentrated corporate power. New Yorkers heard that agenda, understood it and elected him.

American democratic socialists compete in elections, operate within constitutional government and can be removed by voters. They generally support stronger labor rights, greater public investment, regulation of corporate power and public guarantees around needs including housing, healthcare, childcare and transportation. You can disagree with every one of those priorities without pretending they are identical to authoritarian communism.

Calling every public benefit communism prevents people from examining what the policy actually does and who benefits from it. Once people move beyond the label, the supposedly terrifying agenda begins to sound suspiciously like the help they have needed for years. Affordable childcare, stable rent, decent wages, reliable transportation and corporate accountability are far more difficult to demonize when people can see them operating in their own communities.

If MAGA Wants to Discuss Communism, Let’s Discuss It

MAGA has not delivered universal childcare, strengthened unions, made housing broadly affordable or created a healthcare system that guarantees treatment without financial ruin. Trump has instead attacked independent institutions, threatened political opponents and attempted to concentrate more authority in the presidency. His administration has weakened the National Labor Relations Board while attempting to eliminate collective-bargaining rights for more than one million federal workers.

Here is where MAGA’s accusations become particularly absurd: the Trump administration has taken or proposed federal ownership stakes in as many as 30 private companies. According to an analysis from the libertarian Cato Institute, federal equity stakes are becoming increasingly routine, with government funding exchanged for ownership positions in strategically important industries.

Public investment and government ownership do not automatically equal communism. There may be legitimate national-security reasons for the government to invest in semiconductors, minerals, nuclear energy and other critical industries. But MAGA’s definition becomes remarkably flexible depending on who receives the benefit.

Government involvement in childcare for a working mother is Marxism. Government ownership stakes acquired through Trump’s Commerce Department are innovative economic policy. Apparently, the road to communism begins at daycare but takes an immediate detour around the federal stock portfolio.

Mamdani is not attempting to eliminate elections; he won one. He is not suppressing political opposition; his opponents are challenging his policies in court. He is not concealing his ideology; he campaigned on it.

He is using elected power to make rent more stable, childcare more accessible, corporations more accountable and government more useful to the people paying for it. Some of his policies may fail, and others could produce unintended consequences that require correction. That is how democratic government is supposed to work: voters elect leaders, leaders enact policies, opponents challenge them and the public judges the results.

This Is the Real Threat

Mamdani is a threat, but not in the way MAGA wants Americans to believe. He threatens the assumption that government must always protect corporations before workers. He threatens politicians who survive by promising ordinary people relief and then delivering tax cuts, deregulation and excuses.

He threatens the Democratic establishment’s belief that voters will never demand more than tiny, incremental changes. He also threatens MAGA’s ability to call every public benefit communism without anyone stopping to ask what the policy actually delivers. The most dangerous thing Mamdani may be giving the rest of America is not socialism—it is an example.

It is an example of what can happen when voters elect someone who identifies a material problem, names the corporate interests benefiting from it and then uses political power to improve people’s lives. Not every Mamdani policy will succeed. Some are unfinished, some will be challenged and some may fail completely.

That is not a reason to stop watching; it is the reason to watch closely. Americans can now compare the terrifying caricature of democratic socialism with an actual governing record. Once the propaganda is stripped away, the question is no longer why ordinary people should be afraid of this.

The question is: Holy shit—why haven’t we demanded it too?

If this reporting helped you see beyond the political labels, subscribe to The Grizzly Report and support my work. Then share this article with someone who deserves to know what these policies actually do—and whom all that “communism” panic is designed to protect.

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Video Version:

Mike Lindell spent nearly six years telling Americans that when his preferred candidate loses an election, the answer cannot simply be that voters chose someone else. It must be fraud. It must be rigged machines. It must be an elaborate conspiracy that somehow leaves behind no credible evidence.

This week, Lindell finally had the opportunity to test that theory with his own name on the ballot. Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth defeated him by exactly 45,401 votes in the Republican primary for governor. Donald Trump went silent, and Lindell immediately began talking about “deviations” and “anomalies.”

The irony is hilarious, but the lesson is bigger than one man getting smothered by his own pillow. Mike Lindell walked directly into the trap he helped build: a political movement in which losing can never mean the voters said no, the campaign failed or another candidate simply earned more votes.

This Was a Republican Primary

On Tuesday, August 11, Minnesota held its primary elections. The three leading Republican gubernatorial tickets were Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth and her running mate, Ryan Wilson; Mike Lindell and Phillip C. Parrish; and businessman and Army veteran Kendall Qualls and Brian Nicholson. Qualls entered the primary with the Minnesota Republican Party’s state-convention endorsement, while Lindell had Donald Trump’s personal endorsement. Demuth had neither endorsement, but Republican-primary voters selected her ticket to represent the party in November. In Minnesota, candidates for governor and lieutenant governor run together, so voters cast one vote for the entire ticket.

Minnesota does not register voters by political party, so it would not be accurate to claim that every person who participated was a registered Republican. The state uses an open-primary system, but voters must choose candidates from only one party’s column. These votes were cast specifically in the Republican gubernatorial contest, with no Democratic candidate competing against Lindell.

According to the unofficial totals with all 4,105 precincts reporting, Demuth received 179,683 votes, or 43.44%. Lindell received 134,282 votes, or 32.47%. Qualls finished third with 88,416 votes, or 21.38%.

That is not a suspiciously narrow result. Lindell lost by 45,401 votes and nearly 11 percentage points.

Minnesota law provides a publicly funded recount in a statewide primary only when the difference between the candidates is less than one-quarter of 1% of the total votes cast for that nomination. In this race, that threshold would have been roughly 1,034 votes. Lindell’s margin was about 44 times larger than the maximum margin that would have qualified him for a taxpayer-funded recount.

He can still request a discretionary recount, but he would generally be responsible for its cost unless the recount changes the winner or uncovers a qualifying discrepancy. In other words, Minnesota will let Lindell count the ballots again if he insists. Minnesota is simply not required to make taxpayers finance his feelings.

Election-Night Math on a Cardboard Box

The scene at Lindell’s election-night event could not have been more perfect if a comedy writer had invented it.

According to reporting from the Minnesota Star Tribune, Lindell paced inside a ballroom at the Minneapolis Hilton as the results arrived. When a campaign worker showed him the numbers and asked what he wanted to do if the Associated Press called the race for Demuth, Lindell reportedly grabbed a pen and began scribbling calculations on a cardboard box filled with copies of his memoir, What Are the Odds?

There he was, surrounded by books about beating the odds, doing election-night math on the box because he did not like the odds displayed on the screen.

After the race was called, Lindell said his team had seen “deviations” near the end of the count. He told reporters that someone had reported “a couple of anomalies” and argued that a recent poll had shown him leading.

But a poll is not a vote count.

A July SurveyUSA poll had Lindell at 35%, Demuth at 26% and Qualls at 11%, with 22% of voters still undecided. Lindell ultimately received 32.47%, only a few points below his support in that survey. The dramatic movement came from Demuth, who consolidated enough of the undecided and remaining Republican electorate to finish at 43.44%.

That is what undecided voters do: eventually, they decide.

Polls are snapshots based on samples, assumptions about turnout and responses gathered before Election Day. They are not advance copies of certified results. Candidates can outperform them, underperform them or watch the race change completely during its final weeks.

We just saw another example in Wisconsin. A Marquette Law School poll released less than two weeks before the Democratic gubernatorial primary showed Francesca Hong at 38%, while David Crowley sat at 7% and a third of voters remained undecided. Crowley ultimately defeated Hong by approximately 3,200 votes, 39.8% to 39.4%. Hong conceded and pledged to support him in the general election; she did not treat an inaccurate poll as evidence that someone stole the race.

That is because serious candidates understand the difference between measuring voter opinion and counting ballots.

The Evidence-Free Formula

Lindell’s reference to “a couple of anomalies” is designed to sound like evidence without providing any.

What were the anomalies? Where did they occur? Who observed them? How many ballots were involved? Is there documentation? Were election officials notified? Could any alleged discrepancy possibly account for a 45,401-vote margin?

Lindell did not publicly provide answers to those questions. He offered a suspicious-sounding word and left everyone else to imagine the evidence for him.

That is the election-denial formula in miniature. Begin with the conclusion that your candidate could not have legitimately lost. Find some part of election administration that ordinary voters may not immediately understand. Call it an anomaly, deviation or irregularity, then demand that election officials disprove a claim you never proved in the first place.

Lindell has been promoting claims that the 2020 election was stolen for almost six years. He has produced documentaries, held conferences and repeatedly promised that definitive proof was coming. Yet recounts, audits, court cases, Republican officials and Trump’s own administration failed to establish fraud remotely sufficient to reverse the result.

After all that time, Lindell is still operating the same way: conclusion first, evidence later—if the evidence ever arrives at all.

A Poll Is Only Sacred Until It Is Wrong

Lindell’s reaction exposes one of the central contradictions of election denial. Polls that show MAGA candidates winning are treated as authoritative, but certified vote counts that show them losing are treated as suspicious.

The reverse is never accepted. If Lindell had won after trailing in a poll, he would not have demanded an investigation into his own victory. He would have celebrated the voters, praised Trump’s endorsement and called the result a mandate.

Within this worldview, victory proves that the people have spoken while defeat proves the system is corrupt. There is no result capable of disproving the belief because every loss becomes additional evidence for it.

That is not election integrity. It is a political participation trophy for adults who believe democracy is legitimate only when they win.

What Loyalty to Trump Has Already Cost Lindell

The saddest part may be that Mike Lindell has already paid an extraordinary price for Donald Trump’s refusal to accept the 2020 election.

After embracing Trump’s voting-machine conspiracies, Lindell put his company, personal fortune and reputation behind claims he could not prove. Major retailers stopped carrying MyPillow products, including Walmart, Bed Bath & Beyond, Kohl’s, Costco, QVC, JCPenney, Wayfair and H-E-B. Some retailers cited declining demand rather than Lindell’s politics, but the commercial collapse was undeniable.

Lindell claimed MyPillow lost approximately $100 million in retail sales. The company auctioned off more than 800 pieces of equipment as it consolidated operations. A Minnesota warehouse sought to evict MyPillow over more than $217,000 in unpaid rent, and Fox News stopped airing the company’s commercials after Lindell acknowledged owing the network $7.8 million.

The lawsuits and unpaid bills continued piling up. Former attorneys withdrew while alleging that Lindell owed them millions in legal fees. FedEx sued MyPillow for nearly $9 million in unpaid shipping charges, while another shipping company obtained a judgment approaching $778,000.

In April 2025, Lindell appeared before U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols in a dispute over $56,369 in sanctions owed to Smartmatic. Lindell had been sanctioned over claims the court deemed frivolous, and Smartmatic was asking the judge to compel payment.

A tearful Lindell said he had borrowed everything he could borrow, nobody would lend him more money, hundreds of employees had been laid off and two of his houses were being liquidated. “I’m in ruins,” he told the court. The judge correctly noted that these were unverified representations and ordered Lindell to submit financial documentation.

The consequences did not stop with unpaid bills. In June 2025, a federal jury ordered Lindell and his media platform to pay $2.3 million for defaming Eric Coomer, a former Dominion Voting Systems employee whom Lindell had accused of treason. Later that year, a federal judge ruled that Lindell had made 51 false statements about Smartmatic and the 2020 election, concluding that no reasonable jury could find those statements true.

Lindell sacrificed money, employees, business relationships, property, legal cases and credibility for a story that primarily benefited Donald Trump.

Trump knew it, too.

Trump’s Endorsement Was Not Enough

When Trump endorsed Lindell in July, he called him one of America’s greatest and hardest-working patriots. He specifically praised Lindell for what he had “sacrificed” in the fight over so-called election integrity.

That wording matters. Trump understood that Lindell had sacrificed. Everybody did.

Lindell appeared convinced that his loyalty would finally be rewarded. Days before the primary, he told voters that he held an advantage because he could call and work directly with the president. On Election Day, Trump posted that Lindell deserved a “big win in Minnesota.”

Then Republican-primary voters chose Lisa Demuth.

Demuth was not running as an anti-Trump resistance candidate. Qualls, who received the state Republican Party’s endorsement, was also supportive of Trump’s agenda. The primary offered conservative voters several candidates who could appeal to different parts of the Republican coalition without forcing them to accept Lindell’s baggage.

That makes the result more revealing. Lindell had Trump’s complete endorsement, national name recognition and years of demonstrated MAGA loyalty. Nearly two-thirds of voters in the Republican primary still selected someone else.

One primary does not prove that Trump has lost control of the Republican Party. It does, however, show another crack around the edges of the idea that his endorsement is an automatic ticket to victory. Trump could push Lindell to the front of the conversation, but he could not make Minnesota voters believe Lindell was qualified to govern their state.

Trump’s Loyalty Runs One Way

After Lindell’s defeat, Trump offered no immediate public message of support.

Silence does not prove Trump will never mention him again. He may eventually post something, blame the result on turnout or return to Lindell when he needs another loyal defender. But in the hours when Lindell was pacing a hotel ballroom, questioning the numbers and confronting the collapse of his political ambitions, the man for whom he had sacrificed so much had already moved on.

That is the “find out” portion of MAGA FAFO.

Trump demands complete loyalty from the people around him, but his loyalty rarely survives their usefulness. Allies are expected to risk their careers, money, reputations and even their freedom to protect him. When they lose, Trump distances himself because the consequences belong to them—not him.

Mike Lindell paid. Rudy Giuliani paid. January 6 defendants paid. Election workers who were falsely accused paid. Ordinary people who believed the lies paid.

Trump remained at the center while everyone else absorbed the damage around him.

Lindell has now learned one more brutal lesson: sacrificing everything for Donald Trump cannot force voters to choose you, and it does not guarantee Trump will be standing beside you when they do not.

The Trap Lindell Built for Himself

Mike Lindell has made himself a prisoner of his own political identity.

If he admits that he lost fairly, he must acknowledge the validity of the same basic election system he has spent years teaching people not to trust. He would have to accept that polls can be wrong, vote totals can change as precincts report and a candidate can lose without anyone stealing anything.

Those are ordinary facts about elections. For Lindell, however, accepting them would threaten the story around which he rebuilt his entire public life.

So he reaches for anomalies—not because he has publicly produced evidence that this primary was stolen, but because the movement he helped create gave him no emotionally acceptable way to lose. Admitting that voters rejected him would force him to confront what the conspiracy has already cost.

That is the trap. Once you teach people that every defeat is illegitimate, you can never simply lose. You must keep searching for another anomaly, inventing another villain or paying for another challenge.

A Preview of the Midterms

Lindell’s reaction is also a preview of what we should expect after the 2026 midterms.

If MAGA candidates lose competitive races, some will point to late-counted mail ballots, urban turnout, polling errors, voting machines or ordinary changes in the reported totals. They will use technical-sounding language to manufacture suspicion before election officials have even completed routine canvassing.

The claims will spread faster than the evidence because outrage does not wait for documentation. Candidates will understand that questioning an election can generate attention, donations and loyalty from voters who have already been trained to believe defeat is impossible without fraud.

That is why the standard must remain clear: candidates who allege election misconduct must provide specific, credible and verifiable evidence. Not vibes. Not an internal poll. Not a rumor from someone who saw “a couple of anomalies.”

Democracy does not require candidates to enjoy losing. It requires them to accept verified results unless they can demonstrate that something consequential actually went wrong.

If every disappointed candidate can treat defeat as proof of fraud, elections stop functioning as a way for citizens to choose their leaders. They become a loyalty test in which only one side is permitted to win.

The MAGA Ending He Earned

Mike Lindell did not lose to a Democrat and blame Democrats. He lost a contest for the Republican nomination after receiving Donald Trump’s endorsement.

He had the famous name, direct access to the president and nearly six years of receipts proving his loyalty to the movement. None of it was enough.

That does not mean Minnesota Republicans have rejected Trumpism or election denial altogether. It means something narrower but still important: voters were not willing to turn Lindell’s devotion to Trump into a governorship.

Mike Lindell spent years helping Donald Trump transform losing into evidence of cheating. Now he has lost his own election, and the only language he appears to have left is the language he helped create.

Yes, the MyPillow guy finally got the MAGA ending he earned. The deeper lesson is that he built a political world in which he may never be able to accept why.

Support This Work

The Grizzly Report exists for people who are tired of being manipulated by headlines, political theater and confidently repeated lies. I do the digging so you can see the receipts, understand what is actually happening and make up your own mind with the full picture in front of you.

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Video Version:

I finally figured out why the situation at my daughter’s new school has been pissing me off so much. It is not merely the long bus ride, the disastrous traffic or the enormous line of students waiting to pass through two metal detectors. It is what all of those failures represent: an institution designed to look impressive from the outside while forcing the people inside it to absorb the consequences of terrible planning.

Once I recognized that pattern, I started seeing it everywhere. We are living inside systems built to generate praise, headlines and attractive photographs—not to function for the human beings who depend on them.

The Beautiful School That Doesn’t Work

My daughter’s school is presented as an enormous achievement. It is the biggest school in our Parish. The campus is beautiful, the football stadium is gigantic and the surrounding community is considered one of the hottest places to live. It is exactly the kind of shiny public investment local leaders can point to and say, “Look at what we built.”

Then you actually try to use it.

Thousands of students move through this school, but there appear to be only two metal detectors available to process them in the morning. The result is a massive outdoor line of children waiting to enter the building. A security system intended to protect students creates a separate vulnerability by concentrating hundreds of them in one exposed location.

The transportation situation is equally dysfunctional. The school was built in an area without the roads, entrances or exits needed to move this many students, buses, teachers and parents efficiently. Pickup is a mess, drop-off is a mess and my daughter’s bus ride home takes an hour or longer—even though we live close enough that another school bus reportedly drives directly past our neighborhood.

When I began asking perfectly reasonable questions about the route, every answer pointed toward somebody else. Transportation creates the routes. The school does not control the roads. Another department handles the stops. Everybody controls one small piece of the system, but apparently nobody is responsible for whether the complete system works.

That is when the larger contradiction became obvious. The campus is the product. The stadium is the product. The school’s reputation is the product. The daily experience of the students and families using it was treated like an afterthought.

Whatever planning occurred clearly failed to account for normal human activity. Thousands of people arriving at the same place in the morning and leaving around the same time every afternoon is not an unpredictable emergency. It is literally what a school does.

But the infrastructure that makes a school function is difficult, expensive and boring. Efficient traffic patterns do not produce ribbon-cutting ceremonies. Nobody creates a promotional video about a properly designed bus route. A giant football stadium, however, photographs beautifully.

America Is Being Run Like a Movie Set

That same contradiction now defines much of American life. Schools, airports, hospitals, corporations and government agencies all have slogans, branding campaigns and executives prepared to explain how successful everything is. Then ordinary people attempt to use the system and discover that nothing fucking works.

Trumpism did not invent this culture, but it has transformed it into a governing philosophy. The image of strength matters more than the work required to make the country strong. Visible monuments receive priority over invisible infrastructure. Leaders are chosen for their ability to perform authority, while the actual machinery of government is starved, politicized or ignored.

The result is a country that increasingly resembles a movie set. Everything visible to the camera is enormous, polished and carefully lit. Behind the façade, the pipes are breaking, the traffic is backed up, the workers are exhausted and nobody appears responsible for fixing any of it.

Pete Hegseth is an almost perfect example of this governing style. He looks and sounds like central casting’s idea of a defense secretary. He talks constantly about warriors, toughness and lethality. Even the name “Department of Defense” was apparently not aggressive enough, so the administration started calling it the Department of War.

Meanwhile, thousands of sailors and Marines aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln have reportedly been living through a nightmare.

The Image of Military Strength

The USS Abraham Lincoln has been deployed to the Middle East during Trump’s war with Iran. As of this week, its crew had reportedly spent more than 200 consecutive days at sea without a port call. Democratic lawmakers pressing the Pentagon for answers have cited reports of shortages of basic supplies, contaminated water, broken plumbing, moldy showers, missing mail, deteriorating mental health and serious incidents involving sailors reportedly attempting to go overboard.

Approximately 5,000 human beings are operating one of the most powerful and complicated pieces of military equipment ever built while facing the persistent threat of missiles and drones. Yet when Hegseth was asked about their conditions, he said the situation had been “completely misrepresented.” Reuters reported that the Pentagon insists it is supporting the crew, even as lawmakers demand answers about the sustainability of the deployment.

The carrier itself is an extraordinary symbol of American power. Fighter jets launch from its deck, uniformed personnel move with precision and every available image communicates overwhelming military strength. The human beings inside that symbol, however, have reportedly struggled to obtain clean water, working plumbing, basic supplies and relief from an extraordinarily long deployment.

It is the football stadium and the broken bus route all over again. The spectacle works. The system does not.

In a government built around performance, acknowledging that something is broken becomes more dangerous than allowing it to remain broken. Leaders do not repair the system; they attack the reporting, challenge the numbers or tell the people suffering inside it that everything has been misrepresented.

Epstein Transparency Without an Investigation

Trump promised Americans that he would expose Jeffrey Epstein’s network and release the Epstein files. Congress eventually passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act, Trump signed it and his Justice Department uploaded millions of pages before declaring that it had complied with the law.

That was the public-facing product. What is happening underneath that performance tells a very different story.

The New Mexico Department of Justice is conducting an active criminal investigation into alleged crimes committed at Epstein’s Zorro Ranch. State investigators are trying to identify additional survivors, witnesses, employees and possible co-conspirators. New Mexico requested access to the complete, unredacted federal records relevant to that investigation—not to publish victims’ identities, but to investigate potential crimes committed inside the state.

Attorney General Todd Blanche’s Justice Department has refused to provide that access. New Mexico says it made approximately ten requests and waited more than 130 days. The state reportedly received only 31 pages consisting largely of public information, heavily redacted material investigators could not use and copies of local news reports.

The federal DOJ argues that privacy laws and court orders limit what it can disclose. Protecting survivors is a legitimate and essential obligation, especially after the federal government’s own disastrous handling of sensitive information. New Mexico’s response, however, is that federal prosecutors can seek modifications to protective orders or establish a secure process for sharing evidence with another law-enforcement agency.

Instead, New Mexico says the Trump administration has stonewalled its investigation. The state has now sued the federal government and Todd Blanche, arguing that the DOJ is interfering with New Mexico’s authority to investigate crimes committed within its borders. The state’s position is straightforward: posting millions of pages online is not a substitute for giving investigators the specific evidence they need to identify victims, witnesses and potential offenders.

That distinction matters. The performance was “We released the Epstein files.” The machinery required to investigate Epstein’s network and potentially hold additional people accountable is still fighting for access to the evidence.

Performing Concern While Prosecutions Collapse

The contradiction becomes even more disturbing when we look beyond Epstein. A new Reuters investigation found that federal sex-trafficking charges in 2026 have fallen to their lowest level since 2010, despite Trump’s repeated promises to launch an aggressive crackdown.

Former prosecutors, investigators and victim advocates pointed to staffing shortages, budget cuts and the redirection of federal law-enforcement resources toward immigration enforcement. Those changes have reportedly weakened investigations, delayed victim-support funding and made it harder to build the trust required for survivors to cooperate with authorities.

The administration performs concern for trafficking victims. It talks about Epstein, uploads files and creates the public spectacle of transparency. At the same time, the government infrastructure responsible for identifying traffickers, supporting survivors, developing cases and prosecuting criminals is becoming less effective.

That is not governance. It is content.

A functioning anti-trafficking strategy is slow, complicated and largely invisible. It requires experienced investigators, trained prosecutors, stable grants, victim advocates and years of work that may never generate a dramatic press conference. Posting millions of pages produces an immediate headline, but headlines do not put traffickers in prison.

The Ballroom and the Broken Machinery

The White House ballroom is another physical manifestation of the same governing philosophy. Trump wanted an enormous new ballroom, and the project reportedly expanded into a 90,000-square-foot structure after the East Wing was demolished.

Trump repeatedly said the ballroom would be privately funded. Reporting from The Washington Post later indicated that its projected cost had grown to approximately $600 million, with more than half expected to come from publicly funded sources. The administration also redirected approximately $352 million in Secret Service funding toward what it described as White House security measures associated with the project.

That funding had originally been intended, at least in part, for Secret Service personnel, recruitment, training, facilities and technology. Those investments are not glamorous, but they are what make presidential security work. The ballroom is enormous, visible and designed to leave Trump’s fingerprints on the White House long after he is gone.

Once again, it is the stadium and the bus route. The monumental object receives attention because everyone can see it. The people, training and technology required to make the underlying institution function become movable budget lines.

When Reality Ruins the Performance

This obsession with appearances also explains Trump’s treatment of government data. In August 2025, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released a disappointing jobs report showing weaker-than-expected growth and significant downward revisions to previous estimates.

Trump did not respond by asking why hiring had slowed or whether his policies were contributing to the problem. He fired Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Erika McEntarfer and accused her, without presenting evidence, of manipulating the numbers to make him look bad.

McEntarfer had been confirmed by the Senate in an overwhelming 86–8 vote. She was a respected economist leading an agency where career employees produce economic data through established procedures. The commissioner does not personally manufacture the monthly jobs numbers, and revisions are a routine part of incorporating more complete information.

But the data contradicted Trump’s performance of a booming economy, so he attacked the person responsible for reporting it. It was the political equivalent of breaking the fire alarm because he did not like the noise.

The objective is no longer to make reality match the promise. It is to control the appearance of reality so the promise never has to be questioned.

Ordinary People Absorb the Dysfunction

The costs of performative competence do not remain confined to Washington. Ordinary people pay for them with time, money, safety and exhaustion.

Families sit in traffic because local leaders celebrated growth without building the infrastructure required to support it. Children spend an hour or longer on buses because transportation was treated as less important than the building. Service members endure unsustainable conditions because the image of military power takes precedence over the people required to produce it.

Trafficking survivors pay when an administration performs concern while weakening the systems designed to deliver justice. Taxpayers pay when money intended to strengthen the Secret Service is redirected toward a monumental construction project. Workers, families and businesses pay when a president undermines confidence in the economic data they need to make decisions.

This is why everything feels harder than it should. America does not always lack the money, technology, workers or knowledge necessary to make its systems function. Too often, the people making decisions are rewarded for creating the appearance of success rather than the conditions that produce it.

What Competence Actually Looks Like

Real competence is usually invisible. A well-designed school drop-off is not exciting. An adequately staffed government agency does not go viral. A functioning bus route does not produce applause. Neither does a fully supplied ship, an honest economic report or a criminal investigation conducted without political interference.

They simply work.

That is the purpose of a functioning institution. It should not exist to make its leader look impressive. It should make ordinary life safer, easier, more predictable and less exhausting for the people it serves.

My daughter’s school is a local example, and one dysfunctional school does not prove that every American institution is broken. What it gave me was a recognizable doorway into a much larger pattern—one millions of people encounter every day but may not have known how to describe.

America increasingly looks powerful while feeling completely broken because too many of its institutions are being operated like movie sets. The façade is expensive and carefully maintained. The people in charge are always prepared for their close-up. Everyone behind the set is expected to work around the broken machinery.

Trumpism has elevated that failure into a philosophy: build the monument, make the announcement, declare it the greatest thing anyone has ever seen and force ordinary people to absorb the dysfunction hidden behind it.

If this article helped put words to something you have been experiencing, subscribe to The Grizzly Report and share it with someone who has also wondered why everything looks so impressive but works so poorly.

Support This Work

The Grizzly Report exists for people who are tired of being manipulated by headlines, political theater and confidently repeated lies. I do the digging so you can see the receipts, understand what is actually happening and make up your own mind with the full picture in front of you.

Subscribe now

If that work is valuable to you, become a paid subscriber today. Your subscription helps keep these investigations independent, detailed and accountable to readers—not political parties, corporate sponsors or algorithms.

Not ready for a paid subscription? You can still help this work reach more people by sharing this article or by buying me a coffee to say thanks. Send it to someone who needs the receipts, post it to your social media and help replace political slogans with facts.

To my Grizzlies who already subscribe, share this work and continue showing up: you are not supporting “an influencer.” You are funding independent reporting, public education and a community committed to defending democracy with facts instead of surrendering to fear. I deeply appreciate every one of you. 💙🐻

Video Version:

The United Nations has already warned governments about the exact electric-shock glove that ICE now wants to buy. This is not a similar product or a broad warning that happens to apply. UN torture experts specifically named the G.L.O.V.E.—the Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter—and identified direct-contact electric-shock gloves as inherently abusive equipment whose production, sale and use are incompatible with international human-rights protections.

The Trump administration is nevertheless preparing to spend between $10 million and $20 million to put thousands of these gloves into the hands of ICE officers and agents. The company markets them as an “invisible,” “low-optics” method of forcing compliance through pain, often without leaving burns, scars or other visible evidence. That absence of evidence is not an incidental feature. It is part of the product’s appeal—and one of the reasons these gloves could become extraordinarily difficult to police.

The UN Warning Was About This Exact Glove

In November 2024, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and several other human-rights experts sent a formal communication to the British government after the G.L.O.V.E. was displayed at an emergency-technology exhibition in Birmingham. The experts explained that direct-contact electric-shock gloves force compliance by inflicting pain at touching distance. They considered the sale of these devices incompatible with the absolute prohibition against torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.

The communication also cited concerns raised by European human-rights bodies: If a trained officer is already close enough to place a hand on someone, why does that officer need an electrical weapon instead of an ordinary restraint technique? The Special Rapporteur placed direct-contact electric-shock weapons in the same category of inherently abusive equipment as body-worn shock belts, spiked batons, weighted restraints and thumbcuffs. Governments were urged to prohibit the production, promotion and trade of those products.

That does not mean the UN issued a legal ruling declaring every individual use of the G.L.O.V.E. an act of torture. It means the UN’s torture expert determined that this product category is inherently abusive because its primary function is to cause severe pain, it can be activated repeatedly and its effects can be exceptionally difficult to document. Those are precisely the features ICE is now preparing to purchase.

What ICE Plans to Buy

On August 10, the Department of Homeland Security published an official procurement forecast for the CT-G5 G.L.O.V.E., manufactured by Compliant Technologies in Lexington, Kentucky. The estimated value of the contract is between $10 million and $20 million. The gloves are intended for both Enforcement and Removal Operations—the ICE officers conducting arrests and deportations—and Homeland Security Investigations agents.

The Associated Press reports that ICE plans to acquire thousands of devices, although the government has not disclosed the exact quantity. We do not yet know whether every agent would receive one, whether officers would be issued one glove or a pair, or whether the devices would be restricted to specialized teams. The procurement was scheduled for completion by March 31, 2027.

The record is also marked “Competition: No,” meaning DHS is not planning an open competition among multiple companies offering different products and prices. Because the requirement specifically names the proprietary CT-G5, Compliant Technologies appears to be the only company capable of supplying the exact product ICE requested. That does not prove corruption, but it does make the government’s sole-source justification essential public information—especially when as much as $20 million is at stake.

The paperwork contains one more remarkable detail: DHS classified the purchase under the federal industry code for “Other Spectator Sports.” Electric pain-compliance weapons are obviously not sporting equipment, and a classification involving protective or law-enforcement equipment would make considerably more sense. This is probably an administrative mistake, but it is a careless one to find in a planned purchase this large.

The contract had not been awarded when the forecast was published, and there is no evidence that thousands of ICE agents are already carrying these gloves. But this is not an abstract policy proposal. It is an active procurement plan with an identified product, a projected price, intended recipients and a completion date.

Your Tax Dollars Are Paying for This

The money ultimately comes from the federal budget Congress provides to DHS and ICE, which means taxpayers are funding the purchase. Congress appropriates the money, while the administration decides how to use it within the authority lawmakers have granted. In this case, the Trump administration is choosing to pursue as much as $20 million in electric gloves as part of its broader expansion of immigration enforcement.

No voter saw a ballot question asking whether ICE should receive an electrical weapon that UN torture experts consider inherently abusive. Voters did, however, elect an administration that explicitly promised to expand deportation operations, and Congress subsequently supplied the enforcement system with enormous new resources. Elections have consequences, and sometimes those consequences arrive disguised as obscure federal procurement records.

That division of responsibility also tells us where citizens still have leverage. Congress can demand the sole-source justification, hold hearings, restrict funding, require public reporting, mandate medical and evidentiary safeguards or prohibit the gloves from being used during civil immigration arrests. Members of Congress possess those powers, but they are unlikely to use them without significant public pressure.

How the G.L.O.V.E. Works

The CT-G5 resembles an ordinary black patrol glove until the officer activates its electrical mode using a switch near the thumb. Conductive material in the palm and at the base of the fingers then delivers rapid electrical pulses when both contact areas press against exposed skin. The device operates between approximately 324 and 362 volts, producing around 30 extremely short pulses per second.

Voltage alone does not establish how dangerous an electrical exposure is. Current, electrical charge, pulse duration, placement, repetition, the pathway through the body and the person’s health all matter. What is not in dispute is the purpose: The glove is designed to cause immediate, sharp pain and localized muscle contraction severe enough to force compliance.

The manufacturer calls this effect “neuroperipheral interference.” One expert interviewed by the Associated Press compared the sensation to a bee sting, while someone who tested the glove during a television segment described it as roughly a thousand times worse than laser tattoo removal. Pain is subjective and reactions will vary, but the manufacturer itself claims the glove generally produces compliance in three seconds or less.

The device normally requires direct contact with exposed skin and cannot effectively deliver its electrical pulse through heavy clothing or hair. An officer would therefore need to touch an exposed wrist, forearm, hand, upper arm, back or another uncovered area. That limitation creates an obvious problem during winter, when a person’s hands, face and neck may be the only areas not covered by clothing—even though the manufacturer warns against using the glove near the eyes or throat.

The CT-G5’s published specifications list approximately 90 minutes of operating time. That does not necessarily mean an officer can administer 90 uninterrupted minutes of electrical shocks. It means the glove can remain powered and operational for approximately 90 minutes of active use before needing to be recharged, although the public specifications do not clearly explain whether that measurement reflects continuous activation, cumulative electrical deployment or a specific laboratory testing cycle.

This is not a single-use device. It can be activated repeatedly throughout its available battery life.

The Difference Between Recording and Accountability

The CT-G5 has an internal event-recording feature that can log activations and allow that information to be downloaded. In theory, those records could establish when and how often an agent activated the glove. In practice, the feature only provides accountability if ICE requires the data to be preserved, connects it to every use-of-force report, audits it against body-camera footage and makes it available to investigators, defense attorneys and courts.

ICE has not publicly disclosed whether it will adopt any of those safeguards. We do not know whether every activation will trigger a report, whether officers will be able to delete or overwrite records, or whether the data will be retained long enough for a person to obtain it through litigation. We also do not know whether ICE will disclose those records voluntarily when they contradict an agent’s account.

ICE says every field officer and agent should have a body camera by the end of August. That sounds reassuring until we remember that wearing a camera and providing meaningful public access to its footage are two very different things. ICE’s policy gives agency leadership considerable discretion over whether recordings—particularly those involving serious injuries or deaths—will be released.

In July, DHS acknowledged that officers involved in a deadly ICE shooting in Houston had not even been issued body cameras. Even when agents do record an encounter, ICE largely controls whether the public ever sees what happened. There is little reason to assume the agency will be more forthcoming with evidence downloaded from a shock glove.

“Low Optics” Is Not a Bug

Compliant Technologies has described the G.L.O.V.E. as an “invisible partner,” a “force multiplier” and a “low-optics” solution. It advertises compliance within three seconds without burns, marks or scars. Law-enforcement trade coverage has praised the device for improving “use-of-force optics,” with one article comparing its discreet electrical shock to the ugly public image of an officer repeatedly driving a knee into someone’s side.

The message is not subtle. In a world where bystanders routinely record encounters, the glove allows an officer to inflict pain without drawing a Taser, swinging a baton, raising a fist or visibly doing much of anything. The officer may appear to be placing an ordinary hand on someone’s arm.

That discretion is not an unfortunate side effect. It is part of the sales pitch.

Bystander phones, storefront surveillance systems, doorbell cameras, dashboard cameras and body cameras mean more law-enforcement encounters are being recorded. Video evidence can contradict an officer’s written account and increase the government’s legal exposure when excessive force is used. A weapon marketed for “low optics” gives officers a way to cause severe pain that many of those cameras may never clearly capture.

Even a functioning body camera may not record an agent pressing a hidden switch or conductive material making contact with someone’s skin. The footage may show the agent touching a person, followed by that person screaming, jerking away or instinctively trying to escape. Without the glove’s activation records, medical documentation and a detailed use-of-force report, the camera may capture the reaction while completely missing its cause.

That creates a dangerous escalation loop. An agent shocks someone without warning, the person recoils from the sudden pain and the agent characterizes that movement as resistance. The supposed resistance then becomes justification for another shock or an escalation to additional force.

An otherwise frightened but compliant person could suddenly appear combative because neither the person nor surrounding witnesses understand where the pain is coming from. The weapon can manufacture the very “resistance” used to justify its continued deployment.

The Abuse Is Not Hypothetical

In September 2022, Joshua Elswick was a pretrial detainee at the Bullitt County Detention Center in Kentucky. He was handcuffed, wearing leg shackles, experiencing a serious mental-health crisis and suspected of using methamphetamine. Court records show that deputies used the G.L.O.V.E. against his wrists, forearms and elbow while attempting to control him and remove his restraints.

The records describe multiple electrical contacts over several minutes as Elswick resisted the deputies. After his release from jail five days later, he went to a hospital complaining of pain in his arms and neck. He compared the sensation in his skin to the strange, lingering feeling of a burn several days after the initial injury.

The jail’s own investigator initially concluded that the deputy’s use of the glove was excessive, and the deputy was demoted. The facility temporarily stopped using the gloves while reviewing its rules. The investigator also acknowledged that the jail did not have a formal policy defining the proper procedures and restrictions for using the G.L.O.V.E. at the time of the incident.

Elswick sued, but the district court granted the deputy summary judgment and qualified immunity. An appeals court affirmed that decision in January 2026. The courts considered the need for force, the amount used, Elswick’s injuries, attempts to calm the situation, the security threat perceived by the officers and whether Elswick was actively resisting.

The court found the use reasonable under those circumstances, partly because Elswick resisted and did not produce evidence of significant or permanent injury. At the same time, the court acknowledged his burn-like complaints and declined to declare multiple electrical shocks inherently trivial.

That outcome exposes a disturbing trap. The glove is promoted partly because it supposedly leaves little or no physical evidence, but a person alleging excessive force may be expected to demonstrate a meaningful injury. The absence of visible marks becomes both a marketing benefit for the seller and a legal obstacle for the person who says the weapon was abused.

ICE officers, like other federal officials, can raise qualified immunity in civil-rights lawsuits, although its application depends on the particular facts and legal claim. Filing a lawsuit does not guarantee that a victim will receive compensation or even have the opportunity to present the case to a jury.

At the time of the Elswick case, a distributor said approximately 40 to 50 Kentucky agencies possessed the gloves, most of them jails. The manufacturer now claims its technology is used by more than 700 agencies. Bullitt County is therefore not evidence that every participating agency lacks adequate policies, but it is a clear warning about what can happen when an electrical weapon is deployed before strict rules governing its use are established.

ICE is planning to buy thousands without first showing the public those rules.

The Marketing and the Warnings Tell Different Stories

The company’s public materials repeatedly use words such as “non-lethal,” “non-injurious” and “humane.” Its training materials are substantially more cautious. The company warns that the gloves should not be used as punishment, in response to verbal defiance or belligerence, or against children, pregnant women, elderly people and people with disabilities.

Users are instructed to stop once a person is compliant and under control, avoid sensitive areas and activate the agency’s medical-response protocol after a conducted-electrical-weapon deployment. The company’s own training examination defines a warning as an instruction that could result in death or injury if ignored. Users must also receive training and be recertified every two years.

“Non-lethal” does not mean risk-free. The company itself anticipates the need for medical protocols, specialized training, regular recertification and clear agency policies. ICE has not explained how the public will know whether an agent completed that training, who will track recertification or whether an unqualified agent will be physically prevented from accessing a glove.

We also do not know whether every shocked person will receive a medical evaluation, whether deployment against an already-restrained person will be prohibited, or whether an agent who fails to activate a body camera will face meaningful consequences. These are not minor administrative questions. They determine whether the glove is treated as a serious electrical weapon or merely another piece of equipment agents can use at their discretion.

ICE has not earned the benefit of the doubt. Its agents have conducted aggressive operations without body cameras, confronted or detained people whose citizenship or legal status they failed to establish correctly, and faced repeated allegations that official descriptions of violent encounters did not match available video. Giving a weapon that requires careful judgment to a system already struggling with judgment, transparency and accountability is not caution. It is recklessness.

The “Safety Study” Is Not a Clinical Trial

Supporters of the G.L.O.V.E. frequently cite a 2019 paper as proof that the product is medically safe. Some promotional coverage has called it an “NIH study,” which is misleading. The paper is listed on PubMed, a research index maintained by the National Library of Medicine, but inclusion in that database does not mean the National Institutes of Health designed, funded, conducted or endorsed the research.

The actual work was a six-page conference paper published through the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, commonly known as IEEE. IEEE is a major professional organization that publishes technical research and hosts engineering conferences. This was a legitimate engineering paper, but it was not a clinical trial conducted by the NIH.

Researchers tested four gloves. They used fresh, skinned animal tissue to estimate electrical resistance, measured the devices’ output against simulated loads and compared the results with relevant technical standards. The testing included a simulated current path that could present a cardiac risk, and the authors concluded that the measured output fell within the electrical standards they examined.

What the study did not do was follow thousands of people after actual arrests. It did not clinically evaluate repeated use on children, pregnant women, elderly people, people with heart disease, people with disabilities, intoxicated people or people experiencing psychiatric emergencies. It did not test what happens when an undertrained officer presses too hard, activates the glove too long, uses two gloves or shocks someone repeatedly during a chaotic struggle.

The manufacturer claims its technology is now used by more than 700 agencies. Earlier company-linked reporting cited approximately 3,000 field uses and 15,000 total applications when training exposures were included. Despite that potentially enormous pool of data, there is no large, independent, peer-reviewed study publishing comprehensive medical and use-of-force outcomes from those deployments.

We do not know how often the glove was used, against whom or in response to what behavior. There is no independent public accounting of how many people were already handcuffed, how many were shocked multiple times, how many fell, how many reported burns or delayed pain, or how many activations never appeared in an official use-of-force report. Selected testimonials published on the seller’s website are not a substitute for transparent, independently reviewed evidence.

When Almost Anything Becomes “Resistance”

The company’s selected success stories reveal how quickly the justification for using the glove can expand. One man was shocked for five seconds because he resisted entering a patrol car. Another was shocked in the wrist while attempting to destroy suspected drug evidence.

A female inmate pulled away from an officer, was shocked in the arm, yelled and collapsed to the floor. A suicidal man believed to be intoxicated was shocked in the lower back at a hospital. Another inmate engaging in self-harm was shocked in the wrist.

The category rapidly moves from someone actively threatening an officer to someone pulling away, refusing to enter a vehicle, hiding a hand, passively resisting or failing to obey instructions quickly enough. When pain compliance is always sitting in an officer’s palm, almost any opposition can be translated into a reason to use it.

Michigan’s prison system at least established written rules for its 2026 pilot program. The gloves are normally secured instead of being routinely carried, every deployment is treated as a critical incident, activation data must be downloaded, relevant video must be retained and an evaluation form must be completed. Michigan also prohibits using the gloves on prisoners held in certain restrictive devices, although it still permits deployments against passively resistant prisoners during escorts, transportation and cell extractions.

ICE is proposing a much larger nationwide rollout without publicly providing comparable safeguards.

Civil Immigration Enforcement Is Different

Most reported uses of these gloves have occurred in jails, prisons or police encounters involving people suspected of violence. That does not eliminate the human-rights concern, but those environments are not comparable to civil immigration enforcement in homes, workplaces, parking lots, courthouses and public streets.

ICE encounters people who may not have committed a violent crime—or any crime at all. Some are U.S. citizens or lawful residents caught in mistaken or overbroad operations. Others may not understand rapidly shouted instructions because they have limited English proficiency.

ICE also encounters pregnant women, elderly people, disabled people, people in medical distress and parents terrified that they are about to be separated from their children. The manufacturer instructs officers not to use the glove against several of those groups. During a chaotic street encounter, however, an agent may have no way of knowing that a stranger is pregnant, has a heart condition, uses an implanted medical device, has a disability or is experiencing a psychiatric emergency.

ICE has not explained how much device-specific instruction its agents will receive, whether the training will address vulnerable populations and language barriers, or how recertification will be enforced across a rapidly expanding workforce.

The gloves are also part of a broader escalation. Earlier reporting showed ICE pursuing approximately 17,800 additional Tasers on top of roughly 4,300 already in the field. Now the agency wants thousands of electrical pain-compliance gloves as well.

There is money for Tasers and as much as $20 million for shock gloves. ICE promises body cameras, but the public may still receive footage only when the agency decides disclosure is in its own “best interests.” The Trump administration is expanding ICE’s ability to track, detain and use force against people faster than it is building credible systems to hold its agents accountable.

Force That Does Not Look Like Force

The central question is not whether these gloves could be used responsibly under perfect conditions. Almost any use-of-force device can be defended through a perfect hypothetical involving a violent person, a threatened officer and a carefully trained user.

The real question is whether ICE should deploy a hidden pain weapon before publicly establishing the rules, medical safeguards, training records, activation audits, body-camera requirements, disclosure standards and disciplinary consequences necessary to detect abuse. On that question, the administration has provided no reassuring answer.

The United Nations has already explained the larger danger. Direct-contact electric-shock gloves turn a human hand into a device for inflicting pain while making that pain unusually easy to conceal. ICE is not merely buying another weapon; it is buying force that may not look like force.

In an accountability system built around what cameras, witnesses, doctors and courts can prove, invisibility is power.

If you voted for Donald Trump because you wanted immigration laws enforced, you also need to confront what this administration is doing with the power and money you helped give it. Enforcing immigration law does not require arming civil-enforcement officers with a hidden electrical weapon that UN torture experts have urged governments to prohibit.

Your tax dollars are paying for this, your elected representatives can demand answers and your vote determines whether the people authorizing and funding this system remain in power. Look up your state’s early-voting dates, verify your registration and put the first day you can vote on your calendar now. Anger becomes power only when we use it.

Subscribe to The Grizzly Report to support this work, and share this article with the people who need to understand what ICE is preparing to purchase in their name and with their money.

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Video Version:

Donald Trump spent months telling Americans that Iran was weak, defeated and begging him for a deal. Then, when American officials reportedly believed Iran might fire a missile at his plane, the president of the United States was secretly moved across a Turkish airport inside a catering truck.

That alone would be an extraordinary story. But the part much of the mainstream coverage is missing is what happened before Trump climbed into that truck—and what Iran had been doing while he publicly celebrated victory.

Trump flew a rushed, Qatari-donated vanity plane within range of Iranian missiles after helping kill Iran’s supreme leader and dozens of senior officials. Meanwhile, Iran was replacing its dead commanders with hardened military veterans, correcting weaknesses exposed during the war and warning that it might no longer wait to be attacked before striking back.

This is MAGA Fuck Around and Find Out: Presidential Edition.

The Plane Switch Nobody Was Supposed to See

On July 7, 2026, Trump flew into Ankara, Turkey, for a NATO summit aboard the newly renovated Boeing 747 donated by Qatar. The following day, he publicly boarded the older blue-and-white Air Force One for what appeared to be a routine flight from Turkey to RAF Mildenhall in Britain.

Trump claimed he was using the older plane “for old time’s sake.” He said the Qatari aircraft was traveling separately so American troops in Britain could admire it.

According to reporting from The Washington Post, that was not the real reason.

Trump was reportedly removed from Air Force One before takeoff, hidden inside an airport catering truck and driven to a smaller Air Force C-32A. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was moved separately to the same aircraft, which quietly carried them out of Turkey.

The original Air Force One still departed with reporters, White House staff and other passengers who apparently believed Trump remained aboard. Their window shades were ordered closed, preventing them from seeing what was happening outside. The aircraft had effectively become part of a decoy operation.

The smaller plane landed in Britain shortly before the decoy arrived. Trump then reappeared publicly in a way that made it look as though he had traveled aboard Air Force One the entire time.

So keep that image in your head: Trump spent months declaring Iran broken and powerless. But when the reported threat became personal, he crossed an airport concealed inside a food truck while reporters and staff flew away aboard the decoy.

What We Know—and What We Do Not

There is evidence that Trump changed aircraft and that officials made an unusual effort to conceal his location. The movements of the planes can be tracked, reporters confirmed that their window shades were ordered closed and video appears to show the catering truck involved in the transfer.

What the public has not seen is proof of an Iranian assassination or missile plot.

The allegation comes from unnamed American officials who spoke with The New York Times, CBS News and The Washington Post. Some accounts suggest that Israeli intelligence may have provided the warning, but the administration has not released the underlying evidence.

We have not been shown an intercepted message, a launch site, a missile or an order from the Iranian government. That does not mean the threat was invented. Moving the president between aircraft and creating an elaborate decoy operation strongly suggests that someone inside the government considered it credible enough to act upon.

However, Trump is also threatening further military action against Iran while public support for the war is deteriorating. A frightening story about Iran trying to kill the president could be useful to an administration seeking support for escalation.

Until evidence is released, this should be described accurately: It was a reported Iranian threat, not a publicly proven Iranian plot.

The $400 Million Vanity Plane

The arrogance surrounding this story begins with the aircraft Trump took to Ankara.

Qatar donated the Boeing 747, which Trump repeatedly described as a free plane. The aircraft itself was valued at approximately $400 million, but turning a foreign luxury jet into a presidential aircraft was never going to be free.

American taxpayers reportedly spent up to another $400 million converting it. Some experts warned that the final cost could climb even higher once the necessary communications, security and defensive systems were included.

Trump wanted the aircraft quickly, so the conversion was rushed through in roughly ten months. Aviation experts said a complete presidential conversion should normally take years. Trump unveiled the plane on June 19, boasting about its luxury and new paint job, then flew it into Ankara less than three weeks later.

Afterward, Trump acknowledged that the aircraft still needed to be sent away and “maxed out” with additional security upgrades. Reports indicated that it did not yet possess all the advanced antimissile protections available on the older Air Force One.

No presidential plane is missile-proof, and the Secret Service should never test an aircraft’s defensive systems when it can avoid a threat entirely. The issue is not that Trump changed planes after receiving a warning. Protecting the president was the correct decision.

The issue is the extraordinary arrogance that placed him there in the first place.

Trump Flew Within Iranian Missile Range

Turkey shares a border with Iran. Ankara sits approximately 615 miles from that border and roughly 1,050 miles from Tehran.

Iran possesses several missiles with reported ranges between approximately 1,700 and 2,500 kilometers. Depending on the missile and launch location, that is enough to reach Ankara from inside Iran.

This was not a hypothetical capability that suddenly appeared after Trump arrived. On March 4, NATO intercepted an Iranian ballistic missile approaching Turkish airspace. Another was intercepted on March 9, and Turkey reported a third interception on March 13.

Iran denied deliberately targeting Turkey, and the intended targets of those missiles remain unclear. Nevertheless, NATO had already been intercepting Iranian missiles around Turkey four months before Trump’s visit.

The administration knew Turkey was within reach. It knew Trump’s new aircraft still required additional security upgrades. It also knew that the United States had helped kill Iran’s supreme leader and dozens of senior officials.

Trump went anyway, aboard the rushed vanity plane he wanted everyone to admire, while publicly insisting that Iran had been humiliated into submission.

That is Presidential FAFO.

Iran Had Already Changed the Rules

The contrast between the people leading the two countries is what makes this story so disturbing.

On February 2, Iran publicly announced that it was reconsidering its traditionally defensive military doctrine. Iranian leaders warned that, during another confrontation, the country might not wait to absorb the first attack before responding. It could instead strike preemptively if officials believed an attack was imminent.

Then, on February 28, American and Israeli strikes killed Iran’s supreme leader and numerous senior commanders. Trump celebrated by announcing that “48 leaders are gone in one shot,” as though decapitating another country’s leadership ended the conflict automatically.

Iran did not collapse. It immediately began filling the vacant positions with veteran hardliners who had spent decades fighting wars, directing intelligence operations and working together inside the same military system.

On March 1, Iran placed Ahmad Vahidi in command of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Vahidi has operated inside Iran’s military and intelligence apparatus since around 1979 and previously led the Quds Force, the Revolutionary Guard’s foreign-operations division.

On August 10, Iran placed 71-year-old Mohsen Rezaei at the center of its national-security system. Rezaei joined the Revolutionary Guard following the 1979 revolution and commanded it through most of the eight-year Iran-Iraq War.

These are not admirable men. They are ruthless figures serving a deeply repressive government. Recognizing their experience is not the same thing as endorsing them.

But they are serious men.

They have spent more than four decades surviving wars, sanctions, assassinations and attempts to destroy their government. They know how to replace dead commanders, preserve institutional knowledge and prepare for conflict against militarily stronger countries.

Iran Is Studying Its Mistakes

Iran has also been correcting weaknesses exposed during the 12-day war.

American and Israeli forces interfered with GPS signals, disrupting systems that relied on American-controlled satellite navigation. Iran has since accelerated its movement toward China’s BeiDou navigation system, reducing its dependence on infrastructure the United States can manipulate or disable.

That does not mean Iran has suddenly become invincible. It means Iranian officials studied what failed, identified a vulnerability and began addressing it.

That is all we need to understand about Iran for this particular story. Trump declared victory, while Iran reviewed its performance, changed its rules, replaced its leaders and prepared for another round.

Now compare that response with the performance coming from Washington.

Reality-TV Stars Playing in a Real War

Pete Hegseth served in the Army National Guard and deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. Before Trump placed him in charge of the Pentagon, however, he had never managed an institution remotely comparable to the Department of Defense.

Trump never served in the military at all.

These men approach war like a television production. They announce an attack, release dramatic footage, brag about the number of people killed and declare complete victory before anyone can ask what happens next.

Iran’s commanders cannot afford to think that way. Whatever we think of them or the government they serve, they understand that they are engaged in a fight for survival.

Trump’s administration appears to believe that possessing the world’s largest military makes discipline, planning and experience optional. It treats overwhelming American power as a substitute for understanding the enemy, anticipating retaliation or preparing for the consequences of an attack.

That is the difference between performing strength and understanding it.

The Image That Defines This Administration

Trump’s secret flight matters because it exposes the distance between this administration’s public performance and its private behavior.

Publicly, Trump says Iran is defeated and desperate for peace. Privately, his government reportedly considered Iran dangerous enough to conceal the president’s location, move him between multiple aircraft and send Air Force One away as a decoy.

Maybe the reported Iranian plot was exactly as serious as officials have suggested. Maybe the threat has been exaggerated because Trump needs public support for another attack. Without evidence, we cannot responsibly declare either explanation proven.

But we do not need classified intelligence to recognize the arrogance.

Trump helped kill Iran’s supreme leader and dozens of senior officials, then bragged about it. His government knew Iran had shifted toward a more offensive posture. It knew Iranian missiles had already reached the area around Turkish airspace. It knew the Qatari aircraft still needed additional defensive upgrades.

Trump flew it to Ankara anyway because he believed American power meant consequences were something that happened only to other people.

MAGA elected leaders who perform strength instead of understanding it. They believe war ends when Donald Trump announces that he has won and that experience, restraint and planning are unnecessary when America owns the biggest weapons.

Iran’s leaders know better. They do not need to be good men for us to acknowledge that they are very serious men preparing for a real war.

Trump thought he was filming another episode of The Apprentice. Iran understood that it was fighting for survival.

The image that captures this administration is not Trump standing proudly in front of his beautiful new plane. It is the president hiding inside a food truck from the country he claimed he had already defeated.

Does that make Trump look powerful—or does it expose how dangerously unserious this administration has become?

Support This Work

The Grizzly Report exists for people who are tired of being manipulated by headlines, political theater and confidently repeated lies. I do the digging so you can see the receipts, understand what is actually happening and make up your own mind with the full picture in front of you.

Subscribe now

If that work is valuable to you, become a paid subscriber today. Your subscription helps keep these investigations independent, detailed and accountable to readers—not political parties, corporate sponsors or algorithms.

Not ready for a paid subscription? You can still help this work reach more people by sharing this article or by buying me a coffee to say thanks. Send it to someone who needs the receipts, post it to your social media and help replace political slogans with facts.

To my Grizzlies who already subscribe, share this work and continue showing up: you are not supporting “an influencer.” You are funding independent reporting, public education and a community committed to defending democracy with facts instead of surrendering to fear. I deeply appreciate every one of you. 💙🐻

Video Version:

America can be the richest and most powerful country on Earth while the people living inside it become poorer, sicker, less secure and less free. It can have the world’s largest military while veterans sleep on the street, produce billionaires faster than any other nation while working families cannot afford health insurance, and boast about a soaring stock market while millions of Americans put groceries on credit cards.

That raises a question the MAGA movement’s favorite slogan conveniently avoids: Great for whom?

Making billionaires wealthier, removing regulations from corporations and giving the president more power may be wonderful for the people at the top. But none of that necessarily makes life better for actual Americans. Look around: people working full time cannot afford housing, parents are skipping meals, young adults cannot imagine buying homes, and older Americans worry that one medical emergency will destroy everything they saved.

MAGA politicians have controlled the presidency, House and Senate for nearly two years. They have shown us what “Make America Great Again” means to them: more authority for Donald Trump, more freedom for corporations, more advantages for the wealthy and fewer protections for everyone else.

The 2026 midterms will decide whether they receive another two years to finish the job.

A Choice Between Two Americas

Imagine the two possible Americas waiting on the other side of this election.

In the first, millions of people who dislike Trump stay home because they are disappointed with Democrats, frustrated with the system or convinced that a midterm election cannot change anything. Republican voters turn out, the GOP maintains control of Congress, and Trump begins the final two years of his presidency with no meaningful legislative check on his power.

In the second, independents, Democrats, non-MAGA Republicans and people who normally skip midterms form a temporary coalition. They do not agree on every policy, nor do they suddenly fall in love with the Democratic Party. They agree on one essential principle: no president should possess this much unchecked power.

This is not a contest between a perfect political party and an imperfect one. No perfect party exists. It is a choice between a Congress that continues protecting Trump and one capable of obstructing, investigating and exposing his administration.

Before entering those two futures, however, there is one number every voter should know. According to the Center for Progressive Reform’s most recent comprehensive update, the Trump administration had already initiated or completed 283 of the 532 domestic administrative actions it tracks from Project 2025. That was approximately 53 percent of the tracked agenda during Trump’s first year back in office.

Project 2025 is not a hypothetical plan waiting to begin after the midterms. More than half of the actions tracked by that organization were already underway by February. The election will determine whether MAGA receives congressional protection to continue implementing it—or whether Americans finally take away the rubber stamp.

The First America: Congress Works for Trump

Suppose Republicans maintain control of the House and Senate. Trump would wake up after the election believing that voters had endorsed everything his administration had done during its first two years.

Republican lawmakers would reach the same conclusion. Those who privately question Trump would learn that resisting him only threatens their own careers, while the people implementing Project 2025 would know they had another two years to consolidate presidential power.

Congress is constitutionally supposed to prevent exactly this situation. The federal government separates power among three branches because the founders did not trust any president with unlimited authority. Congress writes laws, controls federal spending, investigates the executive branch, approves or rejects nominees and, in extraordinary circumstances, removes corrupt officials.

Congress is not supposed to work for the president.

Members of Congress receive taxpayer-funded salaries to represent Americans and protect the constitutional balance of power. Under MAGA control, however, Congress has increasingly operated like Trump’s legal defense team, public-relations department and legislative rubber stamp. When he demands legislation, they move it. When he abuses power, they rationalize it. When questions arise about corruption, conflicts of interest or the use of taxpayer money, they attack the people asking.

Americans are paying Congress to check the president. Too many MAGA lawmakers have chosen to protect the president from Americans.

The Damage Scheduled to Arrive After the Election

The first America becomes much easier to understand when we leave Washington and enter an ordinary household in 2027.

You are getting ready for work when you receive a notice informing you that your health coverage has changed. Perhaps you are caught in the new Medicaid reporting requirements. You are employed and eligible, but you miss a form, renewal notice or reporting deadline and lose coverage anyway.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the Republican tax-and-spending law passed in 2025 would eventually leave approximately 10 million more Americans uninsured. The law extended tax reductions while imposing new restrictions on Medicaid and food assistance, but Republicans built a politically convenient delay into many of its most painful provisions.

The law’s implementation timeline establishes something deeply important: many of the largest Medicaid and SNAP changes were delayed until late 2026, 2027 or later—after members of Congress face voters in the midterms.

The tax benefits were easier to advertise immediately. Much of the pain was scheduled to arrive later.

New Medicaid work-reporting requirements are scheduled to begin at the end of 2026, with additional health-care and food-assistance changes phasing in afterward. Analysts examining the law’s timeline have specifically noted that major benefit reductions were delayed until after the congressional elections.

In plain English, Republicans arranged for millions of Americans to vote before experiencing the full consequences of what Republicans had already passed.

A person may lose Medicaid in 2027 without realizing that the decisive congressional vote happened in 2025. A Republican Congress could then defend those restrictions, block efforts to reverse them and pursue additional reductions. Instead of investigating why eligible people are losing coverage, MAGA-led committees could hold hearings designed to justify it.

The consequences will not be limited to Medicaid recipients. Hospitals depend on Medicaid revenue, and when patients lose coverage, hospitals provide more uncompensated care. Rural facilities already operating on tiny margins may eliminate maternity services, reduce emergency care or close entirely. Doctors relocate, nurses lose jobs and everyone left in the community must travel farther for treatment.

Washington calls that a spending reduction. A pregnant woman in a rural town experiences it as a two-hour drive while she is in labor.

Trump’s Influence Could Last for Decades

Health care is only one part of the first America. If Republicans retain the Senate, Trump also retains a relatively clear path for confirming federal judges and executive officials.

The Senate approves or rejects Cabinet secretaries, ambassadors, senior officials and federal judges. While many executive officials serve only until they resign, are removed or the administration changes, Article III federal judges generally receive lifetime appointments. They can remain on the bench until they die, retire, resign or are removed through the extraordinarily rare impeachment process.

A judge confirmed during Trump’s final two years could still be interpreting voting rights, abortion laws, worker protections, environmental regulations and presidential power in the 2040s or 2050s. Presidents eventually leave office, but their judges can shape the country for the rest of our lives.

If Supreme Court or lower-court vacancies arise, a Republican Senate can continue confirming judges who support Trump’s expansive view of presidential authority. It can also approve officials selected primarily because they are loyal to his political program.

House control cannot stop those confirmations. Senate control can.

A Congress That Refuses to Look

The House possesses a different kind of power. It determines which investigations occur, which subpoenas are issued and which scandals receive public hearings.

If the White House abuses its authority, a MAGA-controlled House can simply decide not to investigate. Congressional oversight exists only when Congress chooses to exercise it.

If Trump redirects money, ignores legal limits, enriches allies, punishes opponents or allows private companies to profit from government power, a friendly Congress can label every legitimate question a partisan attack. The administration investigates itself, announces that it did nothing wrong and moves on.

That loyalty extends beyond domestic policy. The United States is fighting Iran without a specific congressional authorization for this war. Legal experts and members of Congress have challenged the conflict as unlawful or unconstitutional, although the administration disputes that interpretation.

A Congress willing to check presidential power could demand an authorization vote, restrict funding, investigate the administration’s decisions and force officials to explain the war’s objectives, costs and exit strategy. A pro-Trump Congress has little incentive to do any of that.

Reports have described American service members rationing food aboard warships during prolonged deployments, with military families attempting to send care packages after hearing that their loved ones were hungry. The USS Abraham Lincoln reportedly remained at sea well beyond its expected deployment while families described limited meals, broken facilities and exhausted sailors.

Thousands of civilian seafarers have also been trapped aboard commercial vessels in the Gulf, with some crews lacking adequate food and water while missiles and drones pass overhead. Those civilians are not American troops, and the two stories should not be conflated. Together, however, they reveal who physically carries the danger created by decisions made safely in Washington.

American sons and daughters could be sent into another open-ended war that Congress never meaningfully debated, while defense companies receive billions of dollars to replace the missiles, interceptors and weapons being consumed. Defense corporations make money while military families absorb the separation, exhaustion, injury and possibility of death.

That is the bargain a rubber-stamp Congress permits: ordinary families carry the human risk while corporations collect the contracts.

Democracy Rarely Disappears All at Once

A country does not usually wake up one morning and receive a notification announcing that its democracy has officially ended. Democratic decline happens through accumulation.

One independent official is fired. One watchdog is neutralized. One agency is placed under greater presidential control. One group loses legal protection. One protest is treated as a security threat. One court expands presidential authority. One election rule makes voting slightly more difficult.

Each action can be explained away as a separate controversy, but the system emerging from those decisions is less accountable than the one that existed before them.

Project 2025 understood this. Its authors did not need a bill titled “End American Democracy.” They constructed an operational manual for concentrating power throughout the executive branch.

A Republican victory would not prove that every Republican voter wants authoritarian government. Some people will vote over taxes, immigration or lifelong party loyalty. The institutional result, however, would be the same: the people concentrating presidential power would receive more time, congressional protection and a public claim of legitimacy.

The stock market may rise. Billionaires may become wealthier. Corporations may enjoy fewer regulations. The military may receive a larger budget, and Trump may hold enormous rallies surrounded by American flags. Ordinary Americans would still possess fewer institutions capable of protecting them from the person standing behind the presidential seal.

That is the first America.

The Second America: Voters Remove the Rubber Stamp

Now imagine that the people who normally skip midterms decide to vote.

According to the Census Bureau, 53.4 percent of the citizen voting-age population participated in the unusually high-turnout 2018 midterms. Turnout reached 52.2 percent in 2022. Those were considered strong midterm elections, yet nearly half of eligible citizens still did not participate.

Imagine what happens if even a meaningful portion of those missing voters turns out in 2026.

Young people angry with Democratic leadership recognize that surrendering Congress to MAGA will not punish Democratic politicians nearly as much as it will punish people who need Medicaid, abortion access, voting rights, public education and a functioning government. Independents support the viable candidate capable of defeating the MAGA candidate. Progressives, centrists and non-MAGA Republicans show up for different reasons but one shared purpose: restoring limits on presidential power.

Is that outcome realistic? As of August 9, the FiftyPlusOne election model gave Democrats an 89 percent chance of winning the House and a 56 percent chance of winning the Senate. Prediction markets were similarly confident about a Democratic House but somewhat more skeptical about the Senate.

Those numbers are snapshots, not guarantees. Forecasts change with polling, turnout, candidate scandals and events nobody can predict. A model cannot stand in line and vote.

The House appears highly winnable. The Senate remains closer to a coin flip. If the anti-MAGA coalition captures both, Donald Trump becomes a lame-duck president facing an opposition Congress on January 3, 2027.

Trump would remain president, and the conservative Supreme Court would remain in place. Democrats would almost certainly lack the two-thirds majorities required to override his vetoes or remove an impeached official. Winning Congress would not make groceries cheaper the following morning, restore every program Republicans cut or cause Trump to respect norms he has already discarded.

This is not a fantasy about Democrats saving everything. It is a practical strategy for kneecapping Trump’s ability to convert every new MAGA demand into law.

What an Opposition Congress Could Actually Do

The first change would be the disappearance of Trump’s legislative conveyor belt. Major legislation must pass both chambers before reaching the president, so control of even one chamber could prevent the next Republican tax bill, national abortion restriction or attack on health care from moving automatically through MAGA-controlled committees and onto Trump’s desk.

The administration could continue attempting to govern through executive orders and agency rules. Congress, however, would no longer be converting the MAGA agenda into federal law.

Senate control would provide another line of defense. An opposition Senate could reject nominees it considers corrupt, dangerous or unqualified, block additional lifetime judicial appointments and prevent Trump from treating the confirmation process like an employee-orientation program for Project 2025.

The most immediate threat to Trump, however, would not be blocked legislation. It would be a Congress that finally begins looking at what his administration has done.

Reuters reported in August that House Democrats were preparing investigations they could open if they win the majority. House control would give them the ability to issue subpoenas, demand documents and testimony, hold public hearings and pursue contempt proceedings.

The White House would almost certainly resist. It could delay, sue or refuse to cooperate, but investigators could also seek records from contractors, corporations, financial firms and other private organizations doing business with the administration.

Decisions currently hidden inside the executive branch could be dragged into public view. Who received federal contracts? Where did the money go? Who profited from administration policies? Were government powers used to benefit Trump, his family, donors or political allies? Were laws broken?

Oversight does not guarantee accountability. Accountability is impossible, however, when nobody with subpoena power is willing to investigate.

An opposition Congress could also investigate the Iran war, demand its legal justification, examine its cost and require administration officials to explain their strategy under oath. It could scrutinize immigration enforcement, government contracts, conflicts of interest, attacks on independent agencies and the implementation of Project 2025.

Congress Controls the Money

The Constitution gives Congress—not the president—the power of the purse. The federal government needs Congress to approve funding.

An opposition Congress could refuse to finance particular expansions of Trump’s agenda, attach legal conditions to appropriations and force public negotiations over how taxpayer money is being used. That power is not absolute. Trump could veto spending bills, challenge restrictions and create shutdowns, lawsuits and ugly political confrontations.

Republicans would accuse Democrats of obstruction. Sometimes obstruction is precisely what voters hired Congress to provide.

If someone is driving the country toward a cliff, obstructing the driver is not a failure. It is the job.

This is what turning Trump into a lame duck would actually mean. It would not remove him from the White House or silence him. He could continue shouting, threatening and signing executive orders that would be challenged in court.

He could not pass a law by himself.

Taking Grizzly energy to the polls means removing his congressional protection, stopping confirmations, beginning investigations, controlling the money and forcing every member of Congress to choose publicly between representing Americans and protecting Trump.

An opposition Congress could also begin constructing an affirmative agenda around the lives of ordinary people. It could pass legislation addressing health-care costs, voting access, worker protections, reproductive freedom, housing and corporate abuse.

Trump could veto those bills, but placing them on his desk would create a public record of who is trying to help Americans and who is stopping it. Instead of spending two years merely reacting to Trump, the opposition could demonstrate what a different government would prioritize heading into 2028.

Measuring Greatness From the Bottom Up

MAGA defines greatness from the top down: a powerful president, dominant military, closed borders, loyal institutions, wealthy corporations and public displays of national strength.

What if we measured greatness from the bottom up?

Can ordinary people afford a doctor? Can someone working full time afford a safe home? Can parents feed their children without skipping their own meals? Can women control their bodies, and can workers organize without retaliation?

Can people criticize the president without being treated as enemies? Can citizens vote without politicians choosing which citizens count? Can children attend schools that teach them how to think rather than limiting what they are allowed to know?

Those are not side issues. That is what a country is for.

America is not the flag, military, president, border, stock market or billionaires whose names appear on buildings. America is Americans. A nation cannot meaningfully be great while the people living inside it are systematically deprived of health, security, knowledge, representation and freedom.

None of those possibilities matter, however, if the people with the most to gain continue exercising the least political power.

The Largest Political Bloc in America

In the 2024 presidential election, Donald Trump received approximately 77.3 million votes. Kamala Harris received approximately 75 million, while other candidates collectively received roughly 2.9 million.

According to the University of Florida Election Lab, approximately 156.8 million votes were cast from a voting-eligible population of about 243.8 million. That means roughly 87 million eligible Americans did not vote.

The non-voter bloc was approximately 10 million people larger than Trump’s vote total and 12 million larger than Harris’s.

Those numbers do not prove that all 87 million would have voted for Harris. Pew found that 2024 non-voters were closely divided: 44 percent said they preferred Trump, while 40 percent preferred Harris. It would therefore be dishonest to describe every missing voter as a secret Democrat.

The numbers prove something else: Trump became president with the votes of fewer than one-third of the voting-eligible population. He did not receive a mandate from most eligible Americans. He received more votes than the other candidates among those who participated while an even larger group stayed home.

Non-voters did not all oppose Trump, but their absence allowed the people who participated to determine the government for everyone. That is how political minorities accumulate power.

Refusing to vote does not leave a congressional seat empty as a monument to your dissatisfaction. Someone still wins it.

Political power is not withheld when you stay home. It is transferred to the people who show up.

MAGA voters understand this. They participate in primaries, special elections and races for school boards, judges and state legislatures. They vote when their candidate inspires them and when their candidate is merely the Republican listed on the ballot.

Meanwhile, millions of people who would benefit from affordable health care, stronger wages, reproductive freedom, worker protections and voting rights treat every election as a candidate performance review. If the candidate fails to excite them, they surrender their political power to people who will happily use it against them.

Which America Do You Want?

The 2026 midterms will not determine whether America becomes perfect. They will determine whether Trump spends his final two years protected by a Congress serving him or confronted by one capable of obstructing, investigating and exposing him.

If Republicans retain both chambers, Project 2025 receives two additional years. Trump retains a path for confirming lifetime judges, congressional oversight remains largely dormant, and the Iran war can continue without a meaningful check from the branch responsible for controlling funding and authorizing military force.

MAGA will claim voters witnessed everything it did during Trump’s first two years and asked for more.

If the anti-MAGA coalition wins Congress, Trump does not disappear. The legislative conveyor belt stops, subpoenas begin, nominees face resistance, spending receives scrutiny and administration decisions are dragged into public hearings. The country also gains time to organize for 2028.

Those are not identical outcomes.

You do not have to believe the Democratic Party will save America to understand that unchecked MAGA power can damage it. You do not have to agree with the left on every issue to recognize that presidents require limits. You do not have to feel inspired by a candidate to understand that your neighbors, children and people you will never meet may depend on who casts the next vote in Congress.

MAGA asked Americans to make the nation great by giving one man more power. We can respond by making Americans great again—by remembering that citizenship is not worship, voting is not marriage and democracy is not something politicians preserve for us.

It survives only when ordinary people decide that protecting one another matters more than getting everything they wanted from a candidate.

Voting in the midterms is not a love letter to the Democratic Party. It is not a declaration that every Democratic candidate is courageous, competent or entitled to support.

Voting can be a strategic act. Sometimes we vote to move the country toward what we want, and sometimes we vote to stop someone from taking away what remains. Sometimes we vote for a candidate who shares 70 percent of our values because the alternative is determined to destroy 100 percent of them.

Sometimes voting is not an expression of hope.

Sometimes it is a fire extinguisher.

If this argument helped you understand what is truly at stake in the midterms, subscribe to The Grizzly Report to support my work and share this article with someone deciding whether their vote matters.

Support This Work

The Grizzly Report exists for people who are tired of being manipulated by headlines, political theater and confidently repeated lies. I do the digging so you can see the receipts, understand what is actually happening and make up your own mind with the full picture in front of you.

Subscribe now

If that work is valuable to you, become a paid subscriber today. Your subscription helps keep these investigations independent, detailed and accountable to readers—not political parties, corporate sponsors or algorithms.

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Video Version:

You may have already heard the simplified version of this story: Miss North Carolina USA lost her crown after old racist posts resurfaced, and the Black woman who finished second replaced her.

That summary is technically accurate, but it leaves out almost everything that makes this story important. Most reports refer vaguely to “racist posts” without showing what Brittany Boltinhouse actually wrote, how frequently she wrote it, or how the pageant responded. They also tell us almost nothing about Myla Hadley, the woman who inherited the title—and the controversy—with approximately two weeks to prepare for Miss USA.

Now Boltinhouse is claiming that she may have been stripped of her crown because she is a conservative Christian and Donald Trump supporter. That new defense turns an embarrassing pageant controversy into something much more revealing: a case study in how accountability gets repackaged as political persecution.

A Remarkable Rise—and a Very Public Political Identity

On June 28, 2026, 27-year-old Brittany Boltinhouse was crowned Miss North Carolina USA. That title is part of the Miss USA system and is separate from the Miss North Carolina competition associated with Miss America.

Boltinhouse did not barely squeak out a victory. According to reporting from The North Carolina Beat, she won four of the competition’s five available awards: Miss Congeniality, Best Gown, People’s Choice and Fitness. She was reportedly the first married woman and the first woman of Honduran descent to hold the title, despite having entered her first pageant only six months earlier.

Her personal story initially appeared compelling. Boltinhouse is an entrepreneur and social-media influencer who has spoken proudly about her Honduran and Mexican heritage. After winning, she discussed experiencing discrimination and prejudice and said those experiences helped motivate her.

She was also a third-generation member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, an outspoken conservative and a very public Trump supporter. None of that was hidden from the pageant organization.

In November 2024, Boltinhouse posted her support for Trump on Facebook. She had also shared a photograph of herself at a Trump rally in January 2021, standing in front of him with the caption, “Thank you! Donald J. Trump.”

That timeline matters. Boltinhouse entered the competition as an identifiable conservative Christian and Trump supporter. The organization knew who she was, gave her four awards and crowned her Miss North Carolina USA anyway.

Thirty-eight days later, it took the crown away.

What the Posts Actually Said

The original reporting came from The North Carolina Beat, or NCBeat, an independent North Carolina digital outlet founded by Gerald Jackson Jr. It is not a traditional newspaper like The Charlotte Observer, and its coverage can be sensational, so I would not automatically accept every interpretation it publishes as unquestionable fact.

In this case, however, NCBeat did something much of the subsequent coverage failed to do: it published the actual screenshots.

Those screenshots appear to show an account called “Sosa the Stallion,” featuring Boltinhouse’s photograph and a partially visible handle beginning with “expin.” NCBeat connected that identity to another name Boltinhouse used online, Sosa B. Alondra, and published later political posts under that name, including her Trump endorsement and rally photograph.

The screenshots show at least six separate posts using the N-word between February 2017 and December 2019.

On March 8, 2017, the account wrote:

“If my [N-word] don’t like you I don’t like you.”

On March 21, it wrote:

“Yo WCW was flashing random [N-words] and letting em take shots off her all spring break while u was at home working being loyal.”

“WCW,” for anyone unfamiliar with the slang, means “Woman Crush Wednesday.”

On April 10, the account posted:

“Not yo [N-word].”

On July 24, 2017:

“This [N-word] has me 50 shades of fucked up.”

Another post from February 2017 read:

“Your girl don’t like me but yo [N-word] doesssss.”

Then, on December 19, 2019:

“[N-word] I’m toxic as fuck…I don’t care lol.”

Those are the posts. Now we can evaluate the actual evidence instead of hiding everything behind the phrase “old racist content.”

Context Matters—but It Is Not an Excuse

The screenshots do not show Boltinhouse using the hard-R version of the slur while directly attacking a Black person. They show a non-Black woman repeatedly using another version of the N-word as casual slang in posts about relationships, loyalty and social drama.

That distinction provides context. It does not provide permission.

This was not one sentence taken out of context or a single mistake made during an argument. The screenshots show at least six examples spread across multiple years. The language appears to have been a casual and recurring part of the account’s vocabulary.

The posts also reportedly appeared under a separate online identity rather than the primary account connected to Boltinhouse’s public brand. That distinction matters because it raises an obvious question: If she believed the language was harmless, why was it not part of the carefully cultivated identity she presented publicly?

Boltinhouse is 27 today, meaning she would have been approximately 18 to 21 when the posts were published. She was younger, but she was not a child.

I do not believe every terrible thing someone says at 19 should permanently destroy that person’s life. People can mature, learn and become ashamed of behavior they once treated casually. But growth is demonstrated by what someone does when that past catches up with them—not merely by pointing out that time has passed.

If Boltinhouse had publicly said, “I used language I had no right to use, I was immature, and I am ashamed of it,” this would be a different conversation.

Why the Organization Removed Her

On August 5, A-Blaize Productions announced that Boltinhouse had been removed after what it described as careful consideration, multiple conversations and consultation with the Miss USA Organization.

Miss USA chairman and CEO Thom Brodeur said the organization does not tolerate racism, homophobia, transphobia or language that strips people of their dignity. He also emphasized that the decision was not based on a single moment but conduct occurring over an extended period.

That description is consistent with the screenshots, which span nearly three years.

Brodeur said he had reviewed a statement from Boltinhouse that included “ownership, accountability and apology.” Her full statement has not been publicly released, so we cannot know precisely what she acknowledged. Boltinhouse has not, however, publicly denied that the account or posts belonged to her.

In her subsequent interview, she referred to the “mistakes” teenagers make and pivoted to the woman she says she is today. Combined with the organization’s description of her response, that sounds much more like someone addressing her own past conduct than someone claiming the screenshots were fabricated or falsely attributed to her.

Brodeur also said Boltinhouse remains a human being who should not be subjected to public cruelty. He acknowledged that people are capable of change while maintaining that an apology does not erase the harm or reverse the organization’s decision.

That is a perfectly coherent position. Boltinhouse does not deserve to be terrorized for the rest of her life. She can learn, grow and build a future—but she is not automatically entitled to represent Miss North Carolina USA while doing it.

In plain English: You can still eat. You just cannot insist on eating at someone else’s table.

How Accountability Became Christian Persecution

Two days after losing the crown, Boltinhouse sat down with Donna King of the conservative Carolina Journal and offered a dramatically different explanation.

“I believe and think I was stripped from my title because of my political stance and my belief system as a conservative Christian woman,” she said.

Boltinhouse emphasized that she is a proud conservative, a proud Christian, a God-fearing woman and someone who loves America. But when King directly asked whether supporting Trump was considered disqualifying in the pageant system, Boltinhouse admitted, “I don’t know.”

She also said she “wasn’t really given anything to some extent.” Because she signed a confidentiality agreement, she maintained that she could not publicly discuss everything surrounding the decision.

So Boltinhouse does not know whether Trump support was considered disqualifying. She acknowledges that she does not possess—or cannot provide—a complete explanation. Yet she still wants the public to believe that her political and religious identity may have cost her the crown.

The available timeline makes that theory extraordinarily difficult to defend.

Boltinhouse’s Christian identity and Trump support were public before the competition. The organization still awarded her Miss Congeniality, Best Gown, People’s Choice and Fitness. Then it crowned her.

The organization did not suddenly discover that she attended church. It responded after screenshots surfaced showing repeated use of the N-word.

Using that word is not a conservative value. Racism is not a requirement of Christianity. An organization enforcing standards that a titleholder agreed to represent is not religious persecution.

Her Theory Requires Her to Be the Only One

This happened in North Carolina, a politically competitive state that Donald Trump carried in 2016, 2020 and 2024. Trump received millions of votes there.

Are we honestly supposed to believe that Boltinhouse was the only Christian Trump supporter participating in—or connected to—a North Carolina beauty pageant? For her political-persecution theory to work, the organization would have needed to tolerate every other conservative Christian woman in its system, knowingly crown Boltinhouse, and then abruptly decide 38 days later that her politics and religion were unacceptable.

That is not what the evidence shows.

The evidence shows an organization that knew about her public political identity and crowned her anyway. It reversed that decision only after the old posts became public.

Boltinhouse appears to have initially acknowledged the conduct, accepted responsibility and apologized. Then she entered a conservative media environment where accountability could be reframed as an attack on Christianity, Trump voters and free speech.

That replacement narrative may be more profitable than a straightforward apology, but it is not more credible.

Freedom of Speech Does Not Guarantee a Crown

Some of the comments under this story ask what happened to “speaking your mind freely” or suggest Miss North Carolina USA contestants must now “agree with the status quo.”

That is not how freedom of speech works.

The First Amendment limits the government’s ability to punish protected expression. Miss USA is not the government. A beauty-pageant crown is not an elected office, public benefit or constitutional right.

Boltinhouse was free to publish those posts. NCBeat was free to report on them. The public was free to criticize them. Miss USA was free to decide that it did not want the person who wrote them representing its brand.

When someone voluntarily becomes the public face of a private organization, that organization retains the right to decide whether her conduct reflects its standards. A titleholder does not get to override those standards by invoking individuality after accepting the position and its benefits.

Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from other people’s speech, freedom from consequences or freedom from losing a private title.

A Standard That Must Apply Consistently

We understand this distinction perfectly when the person involved belongs to the other political party.

Consider Graham Platner. I agreed with many of Platner’s economic positions, and he might have become an effective senator for working people. But his record reportedly included inflammatory social-media posts, a tattoo resembling a Nazi symbol, explicit messages sent to women during his marriage, allegations of abusive behavior and a sexual-assault allegation that he denied.

Eventually, whatever political talent he possessed was no longer enough to make him an acceptable candidate to represent Maine in the United States Senate. He withdrew.

That did not mean Platner had lost his right to speak. It meant the position he wanted required the public and his party to evaluate his complete record.

If that standard applies to a progressive man seeking a Senate seat, it also applies to a conservative woman seeking to represent an entire state at Miss USA. We can believe that people are capable of changing without concluding that they remain entitled to every prestigious position they want.

There is also an obvious hypocrisy in watching people demand absolute professional protection for Boltinhouse while supporting punishment for students, professors, entertainers and employees who criticize Israel.

When they approve of the speech, every consequence becomes censorship. When they oppose the speech, they demand firings, removals and deplatforming.

Freedom for them. Consequences for everyone else.

The Woman Most Coverage Barely Introduced

While Boltinhouse presents herself as the primary victim, another woman has inherited the title, its responsibilities and a racial controversy she did not create.

Her name is Myla Hadley.

Hadley is 24 years old. She competed as Miss Charlotte USA and finished first runner-up on June 28. She was not randomly selected because the pageant needed a Black woman for damage control. She entered the same competition, stood on the same stage and finished directly behind Boltinhouse.

When the winner could no longer serve, Hadley became Miss North Carolina USA because she had already earned the position that made her the rightful successor.

Hadley is also far more than a convenient plot twist. She works as a business broker with Transworld Business Advisors and founded Zenith House of Wellness, an herbal-medicine company. She studied human biology at Tennessee State University, an HBCU, before continuing her education at Kennesaw State University, and she previously competed in the Georgia Teen USA system.

On August 5, she learned that she would assume the title. The national Miss USA competition is scheduled for August 24 through August 27 in Miami, giving Hadley approximately two weeks to reorganize her life, assume the title’s public responsibilities and prepare to represent North Carolina nationally.

Myla Hadley Is Not a Racial Prop

Hadley responded to the sudden promotion with remarkable composure.

“I understand the seriousness and level of prestige that this title carries, and I can confidently say that both my team and I are ready to take this on.”

She also addressed the extremely short preparation period:

“While this may seem like a two-week turnaround given the circumstances, I’ve been preparing to represent at Miss USA since I first competed with this organization. I am ready to represent North Carolina.”

Hadley did not publicly humiliate Boltinhouse, center herself in the controversy or turn another woman’s downfall into a victory lap. She said she understood the responsibility and was prepared to fulfill it.

The racial irony is impossible to miss: a non-Black woman repeatedly used the N-word, lost her title and was replaced by a Black woman. Karma did, indeed, do karma.

But Hadley is not “the Black runner-up who took the racist woman’s crown.” She is an entrepreneur, an experienced contestant and the woman who competed well enough to finish directly behind the original winner. The crown was not handed to her as a diversity consolation prize.

It is equally inappropriate to look at Hadley’s race and assume we know her politics or religion. Black women can be Christian. Black women can be conservative. Black women can support Donald Trump. There is currently no basis for assigning Hadley any of those identities—or denying them to her—simply because she is Black.

That assumption would reproduce the same racial essentialism this story supposedly condemns: the belief that a person’s skin color tells us what she must believe.

Boltinhouse’s persecution argument cannot rest on an unspoken assumption that a Black successor must represent the political and religious opposite of a white or Latina conservative. For her theory to hold together, Boltinhouse would effectively need to have been the only Christian Trump supporter whom this North Carolina pageant was willing to crown.

The available evidence shows nothing of the sort.

Consequences Are Not Oppression

This story is ultimately about what some people mean when they demand “freedom.”

They want the freedom to say anything, represent anyone, collect every benefit and retain every prestigious position without being evaluated under the standards attached to that position. When accountability arrives, they rename it persecution.

Boltinhouse remains free to practice her religion, support Donald Trump, give interviews, build a platform, defend her past and tell the public that she has changed. She may even discover that presenting herself as a MAGA martyr is more financially rewarding than serving as Miss North Carolina USA ever would have been.

What she does not possess is a constitutional right to keep the crown.

Christianity is not a magic word that transforms consequences into oppression. Conservatism is not an all-purpose explanation for why a private organization rejected conduct it says violated its standards. An apology may demonstrate the beginning of growth, but it does not require the injured organization to restore every opportunity the person once held.

Maybe Brittany Boltinhouse has genuinely changed. I hope she has. But accepting responsibility would do far more to demonstrate that growth than presenting herself as a persecuted Christian whose crown was supposedly taken because she loves God, America and Donald Trump.

Meanwhile, Myla Hadley has little time to complain, play the victim or enjoy the irony. She has a national pageant to prepare for.

Support This Work

The Grizzly Report exists for people who are tired of being manipulated by headlines, political theater and confidently repeated lies. I do the digging so you can see the receipts, understand what is actually happening and make up your own mind with the full picture in front of you.

Subscribe now

If that work is valuable to you, become a paid subscriber today. Your subscription helps keep these investigations independent, detailed and accountable to readers—not political parties, corporate sponsors or algorithms.

Not ready for a paid subscription? You can still help this work reach more people by sharing this article or by buying me a coffee to say thanks. Send it to someone who needs the receipts, post it to your social media and help replace political slogans with facts.

To my Grizzlies who already subscribe, share this work and continue showing up: you are not supporting “an influencer..” You are funding independent reporting, public education and a community committed to defending democracy with facts instead of surrendering to fear. I deeply appreciate every one of you. 💙🐻

Video Version:

Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene helped build MAGA. They defended it, amplified it, profited from it and ignored every warning about what Donald Trump would do with the power they helped him acquire. Now that Trump has become the disaster they were repeatedly warned he would become, they want to create a new political movement, declare themselves the opposition and ask the rest of us to trust their judgment.

Nice try, Mother Tucker.

Carlson recently released a ten-point vision for whatever political project comes next. On the surface, parts of it sound surprisingly reasonable: America should be fair, sovereign, productive, beautiful, healthy, honest, optimistic, wise, decent and united. Who could possibly object to fairness, honesty, health, beauty and decency?

That is precisely the problem. These are not policies. They are adjectives designed to let frustrated Americans hear whatever they want without requiring Carlson to promise anything concrete.

The People Who Created the Emergency Want to Lead the Rescue

Carlson has not formally announced a political party or presidential campaign, but he has made his intentions increasingly clear. In June, he said there was “no chance” he would support Republicans in the midterm elections—and no chance he would support Democrats either. He later told the Columbia Journalism Review that he intended to help build a third party.

Then Marjorie Taylor Greene posted a picture from a gathering at Carlson’s home in Maine. The group included Greene, Carlson, Congressman Thomas Massie and Joe Kent, who resigned as Trump’s counterterrorism director over the war with Iran. “The movement has begun,” Greene announced.

A few days later, Carlson devoted a 90-minute livestream to the ten goals that would supposedly guide “whatever comes next.” According to Carlson, the next political order should make America fair, sovereign, productive, beautiful, healthy, honest, optimistic, wise, decent and united.

What Carlson did not explain was what laws would be passed, how any of this would be funded, what rights would be guaranteed, which powerful interests would lose money or how ordinary people would gain power. That absence is not a minor oversight. It is what allows him to present a right-wing political project as something capable of attracting people from the right, left and center.

Everybody gets to hear what they want because almost nothing has been promised.

Carlson is not rejecting Republicans because he has embraced the kind of bottom-up economic change promoted by democratic socialists. He is not suddenly demanding Medicare for All, universal childcare, affordable housing, stronger unions or a government that gives ordinary people more control over their lives. He wants to rebuild a political movement around himself, his priorities and his personal definition of what America should be.

That is exactly how MAGA became dangerous in the first place: wealthy, far-right personalities with enormous platforms and even larger egos convinced themselves that they alone understood the country and could solve its problems from the top down. That is not government of, by and for the people. It is another personality-driven movement waiting for its next personality.

These are grown adults who repeatedly demonstrated cultish behavior and catastrophic judgment. They rode for Trump, defended MAGA and dismissed every warning because they believed their movement, their leader and their grievances mattered more than the damage being inflicted on everyone else.

That terrible judgment is why we know their fucking names.

Ten Attractive Words and Almost No Governing Plan

Carlson has offered disillusioned Americans a political mood board. Its language is pleasant because there is almost nothing concrete enough to oppose.

This is a familiar form of populism. Populist movements generally divide society between ordinary people and a powerful elite, promising to return power to the public. MAGA was populist. Carlson’s new project is populist. Democratic socialism also contains a strong populist argument.

But “populist” does not automatically mean democratic, effective or beneficial. The important question is what a movement does with people’s legitimate anger. Does it turn that anger into healthcare, housing, higher wages, union power and greater democratic control? Or does it use that anger to create another personality cult while selecting a weaker group to blame?

That is the test Carlson’s ten-point vision repeatedly fails.

Fairness That Never Reaches Tucker Carlson

Carlson’s first goal is fairness. He says the same rules should apply to presidents, federal agents, billionaires and powerful figures such as Jeffrey Epstein.

Great. Does that mean Carlson supports ending presidential immunity? Would he prohibit presidents from pardoning themselves or people who commit crimes on their behalf? Does he support enforcing congressional subpoenas, protecting voting rights, ending partisan gerrymandering, publicly financing elections or taxing billionaire wealth?

He does not say.

“Make America fair” is not a governing plan. It is something you hang over the doorway of an elementary school.

Carlson also has a serious credibility problem when he lectures anyone about fairness and accountability. Evidence released during Dominion Voting Systems’ lawsuit against Fox showed that Carlson privately understood Sidney Powell was lying about possessing evidence of election fraud. “Sidney Powell is lying,” he wrote in one message.

Fox was terrified of losing Trump-supporting viewers to Newsmax. Carlson reportedly told Laura Ingraham, “Our viewers are good people and they believe it.” Fox ultimately paid Dominion $787.5 million to settle the defamation case.

Carlson understood that people were being deceived. He understood that they believed it. He remained inside a political media machine that profited from keeping those people angry, frightened and distrustful.

If Carlson genuinely wants to demonstrate fairness, he could begin by using a substantial portion of the wealth and influence he accumulated inside that machine to repair the damage it caused. He could fund voting access, independent local journalism, civic education and organizations serving people targeted by the movement he helped build.

Instead, fairness in Tucker Carlson’s world apparently begins immediately after the bill for Tucker Carlson’s behavior arrives.

Sovereignty Without Structural Reform

Carlson’s second goal is sovereignty. He argues that America should be free from foreign influence and claims that Israel used bribery, threats or both to influence America’s war with Iran. Trump denies that Israel pressured him into the conflict.

Carlson and Greene cannot spend years presenting Donald Trump as the all-powerful king of the deal—the toughest man alive and the only leader capable of protecting America—and then claim Benjamin Netanyahu twisted his little orange arm and forced him into a war. They need to pick a fucking lane.

Either Trump made the decision and is responsible for it, or Carlson and Greene helped put a dangerously weak man in office who could be manipulated into starting a war. Neither explanation makes them qualified to lead the next political movement.

Carlson’s broader argument that foreign governments, lobbyists, corporations and wealthy donors possess too much influence over American policy is not crazy. That influence is a legitimate problem. What Carlson refuses to provide is a credible solution.

AIPAC says its operation is funded by American members and donors, not by the Israeli government, so American military aid is not literally handed back to AIPAC. But that does not make the political relationship harmless. AIPAC and its affiliated organizations use enormous amounts of American donor money to elect candidates who support continued American aid and political protection for Israel. That political power helps preserve the policy, and the policy makes the alliance even more valuable to defend.

If Carlson believes that relationship has compromised American sovereignty, he should explain what he would change. Would he condition or end military aid? Restrict foreign lobbying? Overturn Citizens United? Establish public campaign financing? Prohibit members of Congress from trading stocks? Require transparency around political spending? Make presidents obtain congressional approval before beginning military operations?

He offers no such plan. Carlson wants the emotional benefits of railing against elites without changing the economic and political system that keeps powerful people like Carlson on top.

Manufacturing Requires More Than a Bumper Sticker

Carlson’s third goal is productivity. He wants America to rebuild manufacturing, farming and craftsmanship instead of relying on finance, weapons, surveillance and real-estate speculation.

That sounds good. How does he intend to accomplish it?

Does productivity mean continuing to beat the shit out of global partners with tariffs, threats and instability? Or does it mean working with other countries to create a stable global market? Rebuilding American manufacturing does not merely require factories. Those factories also need customers.

If American companies produce more cars, appliances, tools, machinery and technology, they need people around the world who can afford and are willing to purchase those products. America cannot build a global customer base while treating every trading partner like an enemy and making American goods more expensive or politically toxic.

Carlson also avoids the domestic questions that determine whether manufacturing actually helps workers. Does he support stronger unions, a higher minimum wage, worker ownership, protection from outsourcing, antitrust enforcement, federal manufacturing investment or a jobs guarantee? Would he punish corporations that close profitable American factories solely to exploit cheaper labor elsewhere?

“America should make things again” is not industrial policy. It is a bumper sticker.

Every fake populist eventually has to answer the same question: will workers receive more power, or will taxpayers subsidize another group of wealthy business owners? A factory job without union protection, decent pay, affordable healthcare or job security is still exploitation. It just happens inside a factory.

Making Poverty Less Visible Is Not Progress

Carlson’s fourth goal is beauty. He complains about ugly buildings, graffiti, drugs, crime and the physical condition of American cities.

Notice what happens here. Problems created by unaffordable housing, gutted mental-health services, untreated addiction, poverty and decades of public disinvestment become an aesthetic complaint.

We already have a president who cares more about making things look pretty than making people’s lives better. Trump can cover a room in gold, rename a department, build a monument and stage a spectacle while families cannot afford groceries or medical care. America does not need another wealthy man’s beautification project.

It needs change from the bottom up.

Carlson does not guarantee housing, universal mental healthcare or addiction treatment on request. He offers no detailed plan for safe public transit, affordable neighborhoods, libraries, parks or clean public spaces. He wants cities to look nicer without guaranteeing that the people living in them can afford homes.

That is not urban policy. It is a wealthy man asking why poverty has to be visible from his car.

A Health Agenda Without Healthcare

Carlson’s fifth goal is health. He praised Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s food agenda, called for what Axios described as “universal sobriety” and blamed medications including Xanax, Adderall and antidepressants for leaving Americans “half-addled.”

Perhaps Americans take so many medications because millions are desperately trying to cope with lives defined by constant economic pressure. People work more and receive less. They cannot afford homes, healthcare or childcare. They are one car repair away from disaster, and many are treated as disposable by the companies that employ them.

A simple dinner and a movie for a family of four can cost more than $100 before everyone gets popcorn. Make ordinary life livable again and we may be surprised by how many people begin coming back to life.

Carlson wants to scold people for the ways they cope with the disease while refusing to treat the disease itself: an economic system that exhausts, isolates and exploits them.

Praising Kennedy as a model of good judgment is equally troubling. Kennedy spent years spreading unsupported claims about vaccines. Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vaccine organization he led, expanded dramatically during the pandemic, and tax filings showed Kennedy received more than $300,000 for only part of 2023 after previously earning more than $20,000 per week.

As health secretary, Kennedy has continued pushing significant changes to vaccine policy. Meanwhile, the CDC had confirmed 2,371 measles cases and 37 new outbreaks during 2026 as of July 30. That does not mean Kennedy personally caused every outbreak, but years of vaccine misinformation and declining vaccination rates helped create conditions in which measles could return.

After being pressed in an interview this week, Kennedy clearly encouraged parents to vaccinate their children against measles. But Tucker’s vision of a healthy America still begins by praising a man whose judgment helped undermine confidence in one of the most successful public-health tools in human history.

More importantly, Carlson’s health agenda contains no guarantee of healthcare. There is no Medicare for All, public insurance option, guaranteed mental-health treatment, cap on prescription-drug prices, plan to protect rural hospitals, paid-sick-leave requirement or promise that someone experiencing addiction can enter treatment when ready.

Carlson has managed to discuss America’s health crisis without guaranteeing Americans access to healthcare. He does not have a healthcare plan. He has contempt for the coping mechanisms people use to survive the country he helped create.

Honesty for Everyone Except the Man Demanding It

Carlson’s sixth goal is honesty. He wants government officials punished for lying and classified records concerning events such as the Kennedy assassination and September 11 released to the public.

Government transparency is important, and officials who deliberately deceive the public should face consequences. But Carlson’s demand for honesty cannot be separated from Carlson’s own record.

He privately said he hated Trump “passionately” while remaining one of the most powerful voices in Trump’s political world. He knew Sidney Powell was lying and understood that Fox viewers believed the election bullshit circulating around them. He later used selected January 6 security footage to present a sanitized version of what happened inside the Capitol.

Carlson helped create a country where millions of people no longer know whom to trust. Now he wants to become the trusted voice who leads those same people somewhere new.

If he genuinely believes powerful liars should be punished, what accountability does he propose for himself? Not every lie constitutes a crime, so Carlson cannot simply be imprisoned for being a dishonest asshole. But what consequence has he voluntarily accepted? What money has he returned? Which members of his audience has he corrected? What damage has he attempted to repair? What power has he surrendered?

His former employer paid the Dominion settlement. Carlson kept his wealth, rebuilt his platform and now wants even more political influence.

The fact that his theory of accountability never reaches Tucker Carlson tells us everything. He still believes consequences are for the people beneath him.

Turning Parenthood Into Another Obligation for Women

Carlson’s seventh goal is optimism, and this is where his supposed economic populism becomes reproductive moralizing. He argues that having children encourages long-term thinking and blames aging, childless elites for policies that disregard future generations.

Absolutely fucking not.

If Carlson wants women to have more children, he can begin by supporting their bodily autonomy and helping build the village required to raise those children. Guarantee paid parental leave, universal childcare, affordable housing, reproductive healthcare, higher wages, properly funded schools and safe, affordable childbirth. Protect women from discrimination and violence, and stop allowing one medical emergency to destroy a family financially.

Carlson provides none of those guarantees. Instead of changing the economic conditions that make parenthood frighteningly expensive, he turns having children into a civic responsibility—and childlessness into a character flaw.

He also does not get to claim that parenthood automatically creates wisdom or long-term thinking. Carlson has children. Was he thinking about their future while helping destroy Americans’ trust in elections? Did fatherhood make him a responsible steward of the country his children will inherit?

Fuck no, it did not.

Having children does not magically produce character. Tucker Carlson himself is proof.

Education or Ideological Control?

Carlson’s eighth goal is wisdom. He believes schools should teach students how the physical world works, prepare them for trades and emphasize what he considers permanent truths about human nature, including differences between men and women.

There is a reasonable concern hiding beneath the culture-war bait. America needs more vocational education, and an expensive four-year degree should not be the only path to a stable life. But that raises another series of questions Carlson never answers.

Would trade school be free? Would apprentices receive union wages? Would public colleges become tuition-free? Would teachers be paid more? Would schools receive modern buildings, smaller classes, current equipment and enough counselors?

Instead, Carlson turns education into another opportunity to talk about gender. This is still the right attempting to control the narrative by deciding what children may learn, which lives may be discussed and which people deserve to be recognized.

It is not about genuine education or teaching students how to think critically. It is about narrowing the curriculum until it reflects the worldview of straight, white, conservative men like Tucker Carlson.

Wisdom would teach students that the world includes people unlike Carlson—and that those people possess the same right to be seen, valued and understood. Carlson is not worried about building an educational system for every child. He is worried that children might learn enough to question people like him.

Culture-war resentment is much cheaper than educating people, and ignorance is much easier for demagogues to manage.

Tucker Carlson’s Lecture on Decency

Carlson’s ninth goal is decency. He says America should apologize and provide restitution when it kills civilians, reverse Trump’s Department of War rebrand and stop supporting allies that kill innocent people. He specifically accuses Israel of committing genocide.

This is probably the strongest part of Carlson’s presentation. America should stop killing innocent people, stop funding governments that commit atrocities and prevent presidents from dragging the country into wars without meaningful democratic approval.

Even here, however, Carlson provides almost no governing structure. Would he repeal existing Authorizations for Use of Military Force, restrict presidential war powers, cut the Pentagon’s budget, stop weapons transfers to governments violating human rights or impose enforceable conditions on military aid? Would he redirect military spending into housing and healthcare?

A moral objection is not yet a policy. Opposing Trump’s war now also does not erase the years Carlson spent helping Trump acquire the power to wage it.

Tucker Carlson lecturing the rest of us about decency is fucking hysterical. He helped deepen a lasting division in this country while building his fortune and influence within a media system that profited from fear, rage and blatant lies. He helped elect a man who used cruelty as part of his political brand and treated vulnerable people as props for public humiliation.

Now Carlson wants to stand in the wreckage and explain decency to us?

You have got to be fucking kidding me.

Decency would have meant telling his viewers the truth when doing so could have cost him money, status and access. Discovering decency only after Trump betrays you is not morality. It is self-interest with better lighting.

Carlson and Greene are allowed to admit they were wrong. What they are not entitled to receive is immediate control of the next political movement. Adults are judged by their judgment, and these adults repeatedly demonstrated catastrophic judgment, accumulated wealth and power from it and left everyone else to absorb the damage.

Unity Through Exclusion

Carlson’s final goal is unity, and this is where the mask slips. His vision includes stopping immigration until the effects of artificial intelligence become clearer, ending benefits for undocumented immigrants and making English the only language used on federal documents and ballots.

That is not unity. It is exclusion.

Carlson gives us nine broad words almost anyone could support. Then, at the end, he identifies the people who must be pushed outside the circle.

He offers no serious plan to protect workers from artificial intelligence. He does not propose requiring companies to share the wealth created through automation, guaranteeing income to displaced workers, shortening the workweek, strengthening unions or creating public ownership of technology developed with public money.

He points at immigrants.

Immigrants did not create artificial intelligence. They did not decide shareholders should receive every dollar of profit while workers receive pink slips. They did not make housing unaffordable, destroy unions or allow billionaires to purchase the government.

Immigrants are simply easier to punish than corporations.

Carlson’s unity does not ask working people to recognize their shared economic interests. It asks citizens to unite against people with even less power. A movement cannot unite the country by deciding which Americans and which families are unworthy of belonging.

This is not an alternative to MAGA. It is MAGA with the label peeled off.

The DSA Comparison Exposes the Con

Carlson’s timing is important because Americans are deeply dissatisfied with both major parties. Democratic socialist candidates are gaining attention because, agree with them or not, they offer specific policies aimed at material problems.

The Democratic Socialists of America’s current program includes Medicare for All without premiums, copays or deductibles. It calls for universal rent control, publicly built social housing, free public childcare, paid family leave, tuition-free public college, student-debt cancellation, stronger unions, a federal jobs guarantee and a 32-hour workweek without reduced pay. It also calls for taxing wealthy people and corporations to fund those commitments.

You do not have to agree with every DSA proposal to recognize the difference. The DSA tells people what they would receive, how their lives would change and which powerful interests would have to surrender money or control.

Carlson offers fairness, beauty, wisdom, health, optimism and unity.

One side is proposing deliverables. The other is selling vibes.

Carlson’s vibes promise to return America to an imaginary baseline. Factories will reopen. Cities will become pretty. Officials will tell the truth. People will stop taking antidepressants. Schools will emphasize biological sex. Immigrants will disappear. Everyone will have babies, speak English and somehow feel united.

Nothing in that vision fundamentally changes who owns the wealth, controls the workplace, pays for healthcare, owns the housing or possesses political power.

It is nostalgia administered as a sedative.

They Are Not Anti-MAGA—They Are Post-Trump MAGA

Carlson’s movement is dangerous because some of its criticisms are correct. The two-party system is failing people. Corporations and wealthy donors possess too much power. Foreign governments and defense contractors influence American policy. Working people are exploited, and America’s healthcare, housing, education and political systems are not working for millions of people.

Carlson knows those wounds are real. Instead of treating them, he is redirecting the anger they created into a political project led by many of the same people who drove us into the ditch.

Marjorie Taylor Greene wore a “Trump Won” mask and objected to counting Michigan’s electoral votes after the 2020 election. She became one of Trump’s loudest defenders. She did not break with him because she suddenly discovered what he was. She broke with him after he turned against her and violated promises she expected him to keep.

Carlson publicly supported Trump while privately expressing contempt for him. He made money from the anger, fear and distrust that held MAGA together.

These people are not political outsiders. They are former insiders searching for a new audience. They are not anti-MAGA. They are post-Trump MAGA.

We need to put that into words before they convince Americans that being slightly less loyal to Donald Trump makes them qualified to rebuild the country he damaged.

It does not.

They do not get to spread the lie, profit from the lie, watch the lie tear the country apart and then present themselves as the honest alternative to the consequences of that lie. They had their opportunity. They showed us their judgment, priorities and character.

We would be out of our goddamn minds to hand them the country again.

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